Frank Chapple

{{Short description|British trade union leader (1921–2004)}} {{Use British English|date=January 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Chapple | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|XX}} | image = File:Frank Chapple.jpg | caption = Frank Chapple | office1 = Member of the House of Lords | status1 = Lord Temporal | term_label1 = Life peerage | term_start1 = 4 February 1985 | term_end1 = 19 October 2004 | birth_date = {{Birth date|1921|08|08|df=yes}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|2004|10|19|1921|08|08|df=y}} | death_place = | spouse = | party = | relations = | children = | alma_mater = | occupation = | profession = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Frank Chapple, Baron Chapple''' (8 August 1921 – 19 October 2004) was general secretary of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU), a leading British trade union.

==Life== Frank Chapple was born in the slum area of Hoxton, east London, in a flat above his father's shoe-repair shop. There was no bath or running hot water in the Chapple home, later, on Pitfield Street.<ref name="guardian-obituary-chapple">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/oct/22/guardianobituaries |title=Obituary: Lord Chapple |last=Goodman |first=Geoffrey |authorlink=Geoffrey Goodman |date=22 October 2004 |work=The Guardian |accessdate=7 January 2013}}</ref><ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|first=Geoffrey |last=Goodman|title=Chapple, Francis Joseph [Frank], Baron Chapple (1921–2004)}}</ref>

A Communist Party member early in his adult life, Chapple left the party after, and partly as a result of, the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He became a forceful anti-communist, and with Les Cannon ran a successful campaign in the late 1950s to counter communist vote-rigging in his union. He joined the Labour Party in 1958.<ref name="ODNB"/>

Chapple served as a member of the Trades Union Congress general council for 12 years to 1983, having first joined the union in 1937, and he had held offices at every level in the electricians' union. From 1966 to 1984 he was the general secretary of the EETPU. After his retirement, he was elevated to the House of Lords as a life peer on 4 February 1985 taking the title '''Baron Chapple''', ''of Hoxton in Greater London''.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=50030 |date=8 February 1985 |page=1851}}</ref> His successor was fellow anti-communist Eric Hammond.<ref name="bbc-chapple-death">{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3761276.stm |title=Union leader Lord Chapple dead |date=20 October 2004 |publisher=BBC News |access-date=7 January 2013}}</ref> One of Chapple's sons, Barry Chapple, was a regional official of Amicus, which succeeded the EETPU. Amicus merged with the TGWU in 2007 to become Unite the Union.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== * Aikman, Calum, 'Frank Chapple: A Thoughtful Trade Union Moderniser', in ''Alternatives to State-Socialism in Britain: Other Worlds of Labour in the Twentieth Century'', eds. Peter Ackers and Alastair J. Reid (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 211–42. * Chapple, Frank, ''Sparks Fly: A Trade Union Life'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1984). * Lloyd, John, ''Light and Liberty: The History of the EETPU'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990)

==External links== *[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3761276.stm BBC obituary] *[https://mrc.epexio.com/records/FCH Catalogue of Chapple's papers], held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick

{{s-start}} {{s-npo|union}} {{s-bef | before = Jock Byrne }} {{s-ttl | title = General Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union | years = 1966–1968 }} {{s-non | reason = Position abolished}} {{s-new| post}} {{s-ttl | title = General Secretary of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union | years = 1968–1984 }} {{s-aft | after = Eric Hammond}} {{s-bef | before = Les Cannon }} {{s-ttl | title = General President of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union | years = 1972–1976 }} {{s-non | reason = Position abolished}} {{s-bef |before=Les Cannon }} {{s-ttl |title=Electrical Group representative on the General Council of the TUC |years=1970 – 1982 }} {{s-non|reason=Council reorganised}} {{succession box | title = President of the Trades Union Congress | years = 1983 | before = Alan Sapper | after = Ray Buckton}} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chapple, Frank}} Category:1921 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Crossbench life peers Category:General secretaries of the Electrical Trades Union (United Kingdom) Category:People from Hoxton Category:People from Shoreditch Category:Members of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress Category:Presidents of the Trades Union Congress Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members Category:British Army personnel of World War II Category:Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers soldiers Category:English electricians Category:Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II