Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chappington, John
CHAPPINGTON or CHAPINGTON, JOHN (d. 1606), organ-builder, was born at South Molton, Devonshire. He seems to have built an organ for Westminster Abbey about 1596, when an entry in the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, records that he was paid 13l. 13s. 4d. for the organs of the college church. In 1597 Chappington built an organ for Magdalen College, Oxford, for which he was paid 33l. 13s. 8d., and in the following year he received 2l. for repairing the instrument, which remained in the college chapel until 1685, when it was sold for forty guineas. Chappington died at Winchester, between 27 June and 4 July 1606. His will bears the former date and was proved on the latter. In it he directed that he should be buried in Wells Cathedral.
[Bloxam, Registers of Magdalen Coll. ii. xcix. cxxvii. 278, 279; Hopkins's The Organ (1855), p. 50; Chappington's Will, Probate Registry, 62, Stafford, communicated by Mr. Challoner Smith.]