Surgeon, Soldier & First to Score at Twickenham
We tell the story of surgeon and soldier Fred Chapman - the first player to score an international try at Twickenham Stadium.
There have long been close connections between rugby, the medical profession and the services, particularly at times of crisis.
Frederick Ernest Chapman is a fine example.
He could side-step off either foot and play on either wing, at centre or full back and in 1908 was among the Anglo-Welsh team, the forerunner of the Lions, touring to New Zealand. He scored eight tries in 12 appearances.
Having studied medicine at Durham, in 1910, he was working at Hartlepool Hospital when he helped a Rest of England side to comfortably defeat England on the eve of the opening fixture of that year’s Five Nations Championship. As a result, he was one of a number of players parachuted into the England team to face Wales in the very first international fixture at Twickenham Stadium.
Watched by King George V
In front of King George V and a crowd of 18,000 on 15 Jan 1910, less than a minute into the game, Freddie scored Twickenham’s first ever international try.
Wales having kicked off, Adrian Stoop gathered on the England 25 and put in a short kick, his forwards winning the ball from the ensuing maul. Scrum half Dai Gent set up John Birkett, racing through the Welsh defence, before passing to Chapman who outpaced the opposition to score.
Freddie’s first Twickenham try, penalty goal and conversion ensured England ran out 11-6 winners, after a 12-year losing run to Wales.
He returned to the side in 1914 to play a part in securing a Grand Slam in the final season before the Great War.
Serving his country
With a seven cap rugby career, he joined the Royal Navy as a surgeon and was assigned to the the hospital ship Rohilla. She ran aground on a reef east of Whitby, with 83 fatalities. Freddie was assumed to have been among them, until it emerged that he had been transferred to HMS Neptune.
In May 1915, he switched services and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Lieutenant. He saw action in Gallipoli, was promoted to Captain, and transferred to the Western Front, where he was attached to the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, then heavily involved in the Battle of the Somme. He was wounded in November 1916 and again in February 1917.
Family Loss
Three of Freddie’s brothers also served in the Great War, Major Charles Chapman fighting in the Third Battle of Ypres in August 1917 and dying of his wounds.
His sister Marion Dorothy Chapman became a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, serving at Alnwick Military Convalescent Hospital before applying for foreign service.
She was posted to the military hospital base at Alexandria in Egypt in 1917 and ten months later, in 1918 three months before the Armistice, she died of what was listed a pneumonia but was more likely Spanish flu, then starting to sweep through Europe and Africa. She was buried in a Commonwealth War Grave at Hadra Cemetery.
One Last Game
In 1919, her brother Freddie resumed his medical career in Hartlepool, and was fit enough to play rugby for Durham County one last time, in November 1919. He died in 1938.
