Henry Grafton Chapman Jr. (1833 – March 14, 1883) was an American banker who served as the president of the New York Stock Exchange.

Chapman was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1833.^[1] He was one of four children born to Henry Grafton Chapman Sr. (1804–1842) and Maria Weston Chapman, one of the leading campaigners against slavery who worked with William Lloyd Garrison on The Liberator.^[2]

His maternal grandparents, Captain Warren Richard Weston and Anne (née Bates) Weston, were not wealthy, but were well connected and his mother spent several years of her youth living with family in England, where she received a robust education.^[3]

Chapman began his banking career with the banking house of Baring Brothers & Co., where his relative, Joshua Bates, the American international financier who divided his life between the United States and the United Kingdom, was senior partner. He later traveled to South America, China and other countries before coming to New York and becoming a member of the banking firm Ward, Campbell & Co., which was closely aligned with Baring Brothers.^[4]

He also was a member of the New York Stock Exchange, for which he served as president from 1873 to 1874, during the Panic of 1873,^[4] during which the Exchange closed for ten days starting on September 20, 1873.

In Spring 1882, after a severe illness, Ward, Campbell & Co. was dissolved, and Chapman was advised by his physicians to take a long sea voyage. He sailed from New York to Japan and then further east. The trip seemed to have "entirely restored his health" until he was stricken at Manila with a fever that caused his death.^[4]

In 1858, Chapman was married to Eleanor Kingsland Jay (1839–1921),^[5] the daughter of John Jay, the U.S. Minister to Austria-Hungary, and Eleanor Kingsland (née Field) Jay. She was the granddaughter of William Jay and a great-granddaughter of Chief Justice John Jay of the United States Supreme Court.^[6] They had four children:

• Henry Grafton Chapman III (1860–1913), a poet who married Frances Perkins.^[7][8]
• John Jay Chapman (1862–1933),^[6] who married twice.^[9] His second wife was Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler, second daughter of John Winthrop Chanler and Margaret Astor Ward of the Astor family.^[10]
• Eleanor Jay Chapman (1864–1929),^[11] who married real estate investor and society leader Richard Mortimer in 1886.^[12]
• Beatrix Chapman (1864–1942), who married British diplomat Sir George Head Barclay in 1891.^[13] They divorced,^[14] and in May 1920,^[15] she married Maj. Gen. Raymond de Candolle, C.B., C.E.,^[16] son of Casimir de Candolle, and was painted by John Singer Sargent, c. 1881.^[17] In 1921, she lived in Smyrna, Greece.^[18]

He was a member of the Union Club of the City of New York, and "was very much liked in social as well as business circles. He was an accomplished linguist, having excellent command of several languages."^[4]

Chapman died in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, on March 14, 1883.^[4] He was buried at John Jay Cemetery in Rye, New York.