Mechanic in Sir Joseph Whitworth's works at Manchester where he lived most of his life. It is not known when he first acquired his interest in entomology b ut this must have been some time before 1865 when he published his first articles, on Lepidoptera and on Cryptocephalus bipustulatus in the EMM.. In preparing the latter he was helped by E.C. Rye. These were the first of some twenty six or so articles on the Lepidoptera and Coleoptera mainly of the Manchester district. Chappell's activities were severely restricted by the amputation of a leg in about 1884. During the 1887 Jubilee exhibition in Manchester he was given charge of the living silk moths display.
According to J.Harold Bailey's obituary in the EMM, 32, 1896, 262, Chappell's extensive collections were purchased by C.H. Schill of Cheadle. By 1958 17,000 British Coleoptera had passed to Mrs A. Stevenson of Edinburgh, who sold them to the RSM for £25. This collection (no. 1958.74) has now been amalgamated into the general collection. Chappell was well known to be a generous distributor of duplicates and I have seen other beetles collected by him in the foreign collection of J.W. Ellis at Liverpool Museum and in the Blatch collection at Manchester Museum.
Apart from the obituary mentioned above there are others in Ent, 29, 1896, 376, and in Proc. ESL., 1896, xcv. Chappell is mentioned by Sharp (1908), 12-13, who described him as 'an indefatiquable field naturalist, more especially an entomologist, [who] explored the mosses round Manchester, and for many species of Coleoptera his are the only local records we possess'. (MD 3/02)