Ancestors migrated from Britain and Ireland to Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
Father’s side were shipwrights, naval architects, lighthouse keepers, merchant navy and Royal Navy (of Britain and Sweden). Charles Chapman was a Captain in the Swedish East India Company in the 1700s; he sailed regularly to the Far East where he purchased fine wares for his younger brother, the naval architect and mathematician Fredrik Henrik af Chapman. Their father Thomas Chapman was a lieutenant in the fleet that captured Gibraltar, and their mother Susanna was the daughter of London shipwright William Colson. The Chapmans originated in a village near Whitby.
George Tobin, RN, a kinsman of Lady Nelson, sailed with Bligh, Flinders and Alexander Cochrane (uncle of ‘Master and Commander’ inspiration Thomas Cochrane) before captaining his own ships and rising to Rear-Admiral of the White. He carried soldiers to the Peninsular War for the Duke of Wellington. George was also a diarist, artist and naturalist. His brother John was a playwright, author of ‘The Honeymoon’. The Tobins used to be slave-owners in St Kitts but thought better of it and campaigned for abolition.