Fredrik Henrik af Chapman

Fredrik Henrik af Chapman was a Swedish shipbuilder, scientist and officer in the Swedish navy. He was also manager of the Karlskrona shipyard 17821793. Chapman is credited as the first person to apply scientific methods to shipbuilding and is considered to be the first naval architect.

Chapman was born at Nya Varvet, the royal dockyards in Gothenburg, onSeptember 1721, the son of Thomas Chapman, an English naval officer who had moved to Sweden in 1715 and joined the Swedish navy in 1716. His mother was Susanna Colson, the daughter of London shipwright William Colson. He showed a talent for shipbuilding when he made his first body plan based on a drawing of an Ostende privateer given to him by Flemish shipwright. Chapman went to sea in 1736, at the age of fifteen, and spent his late teens working in both private and state shipyards. In 1741, he helped build a Spanish merchant vessel, a project that provided him with enough money to allow him to work as a ships carpenter in London 174144. After his stay in England, he returned to Gothenburg and established a shipyard with a Swedish merchant named Bagge. Together they built a few small vessels and provided maintenance work for the Swedish East India Company.

Source: Wikipedia