Frank Chapple

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Frank Chapple, Baron Chapple (8 August 1921 – 19 October 2004) was a British trade union leader. He led the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) as general secretary from 1966 to 1984. He was born in Hoxton, east London, growing up in a poor family above his father's shoe-repair shop, without a bath or running hot water. Originally a Communist Party member, he left after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and became a strong anti-communist. With Les Cannon, he campaigned in the late 1950s against communist vote-rigging in his union. He joined the Labour Party in 1958. Chapple served on the Trades Union Congress General Council for 12 years, and he had held every level of office in the electricians' union since joining in 1937. After retiring as general secretary, he was made a life peer on 4 February 1985, taking the title Baron Chapple, of Hoxton in Greater London. His successor at the EETPU was Eric Hammond. His son Barry Chapple later worked for Amicus, which merged with the TGWU in 2007 to form Unite the Union.