Harold Chapin

Harold Chapin (15 February 1886 – 26 September 1915) was an English actor and playwright.

Chapin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1886. Although “technically an American citizen, he was an English actor, and English playwright and died as a British soldier”. A true man of the theatre, he worked as an actor (appearing extensively in the West End and in the original productions of What Every Woman Knows by J.M. Barrie and Strife by John Galsworthy), director and stage manager, and was closely associated with Harley Granville Barker.

His plays were produced throughout the UK and in New York

Regarded as one of the greatest potential dramatic talents to be lost in the First World War, his work has often been compared with that of Edwardian playwright St John Hankin. Although largely unperformed today, his best known three act work, The New Morality was performed at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2005.

Enlisting in the Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Army in September 1914, Lance Corporal Chapin was killed in action at the age of 29 at the Battle of Loos in 1915, leaving a wife and five year old son.