BRITAIN AND AMERICA

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 21, 9 December 1927, Page 4

BRITAIN AND AMERICA

SIR FREDERICK CHAPMAN TO SPEAK, -- Of widespread interest-indeed of deep international importance-is the subject chosen by Sir Frederick Chapman for the lecturette he has consent. ed to broadcast from 2YA on Monday evening, December 12-‘‘America and Britain: A Policy of Common Aims." Sir Frederick Revans Chapman is a son of Mr. Justice H. S, Chapman, and one of the most distinguished Judges that have honoured the Bench of the Dominion. | He was born at Karori in March, 1849, and has thus been associated with the Dominion throughout the major period of its development. After a distinguished legal career, in which he was prominent in a number of important trials, he was raised in 1903 to the Supreme Court Bench. For the first 34 years he was President of the Court of Arbitration. This occupied nearly all his time, to the exclusion of ordinary Supreme Court busines3, but he regularly sat in the Court of Appeal. For 17 years Sir Frederick tried many important civil and criminal cases throughout the Dominion, amongst the most outstanding of these being the trial of the prophet Rua, which lasted 47 days, probably the longest period for a criminal trial in Australia and New Zealand. In 1921 Sir Frederick retired at the age limit, but was immediately appointed Compiler of Statutes under a new law creating that office. In October of the same year he was asked to resume his seat on the Supreme Court Bench with a temporary commission, which was running on four a, successive occasions, making a period of 20 years’ service as a Judge. He finally retired in 1924, giving up at the same time his position as chairman of the War Pensions Appeal Board, which he had held for some months. He was knighted in 1923.