GEOFFREY ARTHUR HART CHAPMAN: OBITUARY
It is with great sadness that we, in the Classical Association of South Africa, have learned of the death of Geoff Chapman, of cancer, in the United Kingdom on the 13 th of July 2014.
Geoff Chapman served for many years as Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer In Classics at the then
University of Natal in Durban, before being appointed to the Chair of Classics on the Pietermaritzburg campus, where he gave his inaugural lecture on ‘Women in Early Greek Comedy: Fact, Fantasy and
Feminism’ in 1985. He left South Africa to return to the UK in 1988, where he had a very successful career in secondary education at Christ’s Hospital in Sussex, and then as Headmaster of Queen
Margaret’s School in Escrick (York) from 1993 until his retirement in 2009.
A graduate in Classics from the University of Oxford, Geoff emigrated to South Africa at a troubled time in our history and was immediately thrust into the painful realities of the segregated university system by being appointed as Warden of the Alan Taylor Residence (for black students only) at the
University of Natal in 1968. This period of his life affected him deeply as he frequently made interesting parallels between apartheid and aspects of Greek political history---in particular apartheid-like social and political practices in archaic Sparta, on which he wrote a number of interesting popular articles.
As a Greek historian, Geoff was a demanding and rigorous teacher: scrupulous interrogation of the primary sources and then a critical discussion of the secondary literature, for which one had to do one’s reading. As a student of his, I recall a number of students being flung out of tutorials for not having done the prescribed reading! Articles on the historicity of the Trojan War and on Histiaeus and the Ionian Revolt (Historia 21, 1972, 546-568) characterize this stage of his career.
Geoff was always interested in Aristophanes and began work on his doctoral dissertation in the early seventies. This work on themes in Aristophanes was completed during a sabbatical leave in Oxford in
1974 under the supervision of the late Professor C.P.T. Naudé of UNISA. From this research, Geoff published a number of important articles on Aristophanes in, for instance, Acta Classica (21, 1978, 59-
70) and the American Journal of Philology (104, 1983, 1-23). His translations of the
Thesmophoriazousai (produced as ‘It’s a Drag’ by Rosemary Bamford in Pietermaritzburg) and
Lysistrata were deliciously frank and explicit and were used for many years in both the Classics and
Drama departments at the University of Natal.
As Professor and Head of the Classics Department in Pietermaritzburg, Geoff introduced many changes which greatly benefited the teaching of the Classics on that campus. He introduced extensive art components in Classical Civilization courses, enhanced the collection of slides enormously and encouraged the study of gender and sexuality in antiquity at a time when this was almost unknown in
Classics departments at South African universities. He attended an important seminar on Women in
Antiquity at SUNY in the USA and brought back to South Africa a ‘pack’ of source materials and bibliographies which sustained the Women in Antiquity and, later, the Gender Studies programme on the Pietermaritzburg campus for many years. As his wife, Valerie, was a well-known drama teacher,
Geoff had a warm and productive relationship with drama practitioners in both Durban and
Pietermaritzburg and was often invited by the Drama Departments to give lectures to their students.
It is significant that one of his (and Valerie’s) legacies at Queen Margaret’s School should be the
Chapman Theatre.
As an administrator, Geoff was impressively able and efficient. He ran the department in
Pietermaritzburg very well indeed and, by timetabling a ‘golfing afternoon’ once a week, Geoff achieved an admirable balance between the academic and the sporting worlds. Golfing was indeed a

great passion: on his retirement from Queen Margaret’s School in 2009, Geoff announced that his one remaining ambition was to play a round of golf in every American state!
Geoff Chapman’s administrative skills were no more evident than in the number of Classics
Department tours he organized to Greece and Turkey, at first from the Durban campus and then from
Pietermaritzburg. I was his second-in-command on one of these tours and was very impressed by the meticulous organization (which began a year in advance) required to shepherd a party of more than forty tourists around the Mediterranean for four weeks. Geoff also instituted a programme of university extension lectures based on the itineraries (compulsory for the tour party, but also open to the general public), which became very popular on both campuses and attracted a number of enthusiastic older students to the study of Classics.
Geoff was also a very supportive head of department. I recall on one occasion in the early eighties a visit by some security policemen to the Classics Department (UNP) in search of a certain M. Lambert who had written a scurrilous letter to the press about police brutality. Geoff not only escorted the policemen to the lecture theatre, but also insisted on being present during the interrogation. As he said to one of the policemen, ‘If you are going to harass my staff members, you are going to do it in front of me’. When Geoff raised his voice and gave one the ‘Chapman look’, he could be very frightening indeed!
For his contribution to the teaching of Classics in South Africa and to the work of the Classical
Association of which he was an active member, we remember Geoff Chapman with gratitude and affection. Our thoughts are with Valerie, his family and his former colleagues.
M. Lambert (Chair, Classical association of South Africa) lambmiks@gmail.com
M.Lambert@ru.ac.za
1.08.2014