Harold Chapin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1886. His mother, actress Alice Chapin, moved to London in 1888.
Alice encouraged her son to become an actor and at the age of seven he appeared with his mother in Coriolanus during the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-on-Avon. He also appeared in several other plays during his school holidays.
In 1895 Chapin attended Norwich Grammar School. He finished his education at the University College School (1901-02).
A friend, Sidney Dark, later pointed out: "He loved wandering about the country, filled with an insatiable and detailed curiosity. He was a tiring companion when he was quite little, for he had to stop every other minute to examine a new stone, to prod down a hole to discover where it led, to pick an unfamiliar flower, to gaze at a spider or a toad. In London he would explore mean streets and little-known alleys, observing and remembering. One of his boyish characteristics was a deep and gentle love of animals."
In 1903, Chapin joined the Vincent Crummles' Company and had roles in Jane Shore and the The Murder in the Red Barn. While on tour he wrote poetry and in 1905 he completed a comic opera which he called the Kings in Ireland.
Chaplin continued to act and during the next three years he appeared in The Prodigal Son at Drury Lane, The Bondman at the Adelphi, and Her Love Against the World, The Midnight Wedding, The Christian and Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum.
In 1908 he joined the management team of Charles Frohman at the Duke of York's Theatre. During this period he met two men who were to play an important role in his development: Harley Granville Barker and Lewis Casson. Chapin, who had been brought up as a Unitarian, like Barker and Casson, wanted to use the theatre to stimulate the desire for political reform.
Chapin's first significant acting role was in What Every Woman Knows, a play by J. M. Barrie at the Duke of York's Theatre. The play was a great success and ran for 384 performances. Produced at a time when women's suffrage was a major issue, the play suggests that "every woman knows" she is the invisible power responsible for the successes of the men in her life.
The following year he appeared in Strife, a play by John Galsworthy. The play is about a strike at the Trenartha Tin Plate Works. According to the critic, Barrett H. Clark: "Strife is an eminently fair and just arrangement of acts, facts, motives, and opinions, focusing up to a spire of meaning, bearing upon the struggle between capital and labor. Galsworthy's first care was to set before his audience a clear statement, without taking sides with one party or the other."
Sidney Dark later pointed out: "With all this hard work he never for a moment forgot his ambition to write plays. That was to be his real work. He always carried in his pocket a little notebook in which he would write down lines and situations as they occurred to him. He continued his voyages of discovery, often in the middle of the night and after a long day's work at the theatre."
In February 1910, Lewis Casson directed Chapin's play, The Marriage of Columbine at the Royal Court Theatre. Casson's wife, Sybil Thorndike, played the main role. William Archer later commented: "Several of its lines were of that subtle quality which takes an appreciable time to get home to the apprehension of the audience, so that one can actually watch their effect kindling from row to row, as it were, through the house."
Chapin worked for a season with the Frohman Repertory Company. On 4th June, Chapin married the actress Calypso Valetta. They were both members of the same company. Later that year he returned to the Duke of York's to act in A Bolt from the Blue. When the play ended its run Chapin joined the Glasgow Repertory Theatre as one of the producers. His wife went to Glasgow with him and acted with him in several plays.
Chaplin combined acting with writing. He appeared in The Father by August Stringberg. In December, 1911, his son was born, and soon afterwards he joined up with Harley Granville Barker as stage manager at the Kingsway, where Fanny's First Play was then being performed.
Probably his best play, Art and Opportunity was produced in the autumn of 1912 at the Prince of Wales's Theatre by Marie Tempest. This production made him known to a wider public and he was recognized as one of the most promising of the younger men writing for the British theatre. However, it was not liked by everyone. William Archer argued: "It was brimful of cleverness; but in adapting the heroine's character to Miss Tempest's vivacious, showy talent, Chapin sacrificed some of his sincerity. He created for her a new type of adventuress who, from a sort of sporting instinct, makes a system of playing with her cards upon the table."
In September 1912, his four-act play Elaine, written while he was in Glasgow, was performed at the Gaiety Theatre. The play was directed by Lewis Casson and produced by Annie Horniman. Casson's wife, Sybil Thorndike played the lead role. According to Jonathan Croall, the author of Sybil Thorndike: A Star of Life (2008), the play was a "witty, gently satirical comedy about attitudes to love and money in marriage."
This was a prolific period for Chapin. The Dumb and the Blind had a long run at the Prince of Wales (1912-13). William Archer described it as "a veritable masterpiece in its way - a thing Dickens would have delighted in. There is not a single false note in the little play: it is as restrained as it is touching."
This was followed by his one-act play, It's the Poor that 'Elps the Poor. The critic Sidney Dark thought it was one of his most successful plays: "Chapin's best and most characteristic work is, unquestionably, to be found in his one-act plays, in most of which he is concerned with the life of the very poor. He never gushes or sentimentalizes. He always writes with critical sympathy. His touch is sure, and his line is clear."
In 1913 he appeared in several plays including Every Man for His Own, Dropping the Baby, Susan in Search of a Husband, by Jerome K. Jerome, and two plays by Israel Zangwill: The Melting Pot and Plaster Saints.
The First World War was declared on 4th August 1914. Once the conflict began Chapin found it impossible to write or act. Chapin eventually decided to support the war in the hope that at the end of the conflict the people would be rewarded by the government introducing large-scale political and social reforms. One of his mother's old friends wrote her a letter in which she said how noble it was of her son "to fight for king and country." Harold laughed when he was shown the letter. "I'm fighting for no king," he said, "and the best of this king is that he knows we are not fighting for him."
On 2nd September 1914 he enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Chapin was sent to St. Albans where he met up with Lewis Casson, the man who directed several of his plays and had appeared with him several times on the stage. Chapin was initially given the job in the Cook House. He wrote to his wife: "This is good because it is as useful a job as is going and one that demands conscientious hard work still it does not involve going into the actual firing line - a thing I have no ambition to do. Stray shell fire and epidemics are all I want to face thank you, let those who like the firing line have all the bullets they want."
In January 1915 Chapin moved to an army hospital camp in Hatfield. The following month he wrote: "Things are much more comfortable now. Got into a nice billet, 6 of us in two empty rooms opening off each other - good fireplace and windows. I have also - with 4 others - taken a front room in a cottage, furnished, wherein we can write letters, wash, talk and get our teas in privacy." Chapin was now in the stretcher bearers subdivision of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
While based in England he was convinced that the war would be over in a few months. On 8th February, 1915, he wrote: "Things seem to be going tremendously well, don't they? I expect we shall finish the war up this Autumn easily now... What Germany will have to say to the Kaiser is a question. I suppose you know that we shall probably be on Garrison duty for a couple of months after the War."
Lance-Corporal Chapin arrived in France on 18th March, 1915. It was not long before he was reassessing the idea that the war would soon be over: "The general impression is not one of a victorious army - or indeed an army at all - but rather of a great industrial district, rather unsuitably housed - a more or less improved industrial district perhaps. The impression also soaking into me is that, unless a miracle occurs, it harbours an industry that will go on forever."
Chapin reached the Western Front in May, 1915. Soon afterwards his unit suffered their first casualties: "Mayhew - who knew the two dead very intimately - is fearfully down: seems to think he should have been with them. Curious how people feel, isn't it? I feel most for their mothers. Chick - the younger of the two - was only nineteen and such a child; though very tall. They were all smashed by a shell."
