BJOG Editors‐in‐chief since 1902

Abstract

Frances Henry Champneys was born on 25 March 1848 in Whitechapel, London. His father was the very Reverend William Weldon Champneys, vicar of St Mary's Whitechapel and Dean of Lichfield. One of five brothers, he went to Winchester School as a scholar, where he was taught by SB Wesley, organist to the school and cathedral. Later, he had an organ in his house, directed a choir and wrote hymns. He won an exhibition (scholarship) to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he captained the college boat and took a first class in natural science. He studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital and, having gained the Radcliffe travelling fellowship in 1872, studied in Vienna, Leipzig and Dresden. He graduated B.M. Oxon and became MRCS in 1875, when he was appointed registrar at St Bart's. The following year he married Virginia Dalrymple, and struggled financially until, in 1880, he was elected assistant obstetric physician to St George's Hospital. With John Williams he also took over the General Lying in Hospital (founded in Lambeth in 1767), and immediately established Listerian antiseptic midwifery for the first time in an English hospital, dramatically reducing the incidence of puerperal infections. He was promoted to obstetric physician at St George's in 1885, and from there went on to gain an MD in 1888. In 1891 he returned to St Bart's as physician accoucheur, where he practiced until retirement in 1913 at the age of 65 years. Champneys was prominent in the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. When the latter joined with 17 other societies to form the Royal Society of Medicine, he became honorary treasurer, and then president in 1912. He was also elected president of the British Medical Association section of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1904. He played a leading part in formulating the rules of the newly formed (in 1903) Central Midwives Board, becoming its chairman in that year, and continuing in that role until he died 26 years later. He believed that the practice of midwives should be limited in scope and that they should defer to doctors. This view was not always shared by rank-and-file midwives, who ‘found the chairman harsh in his judgements and scathing towards those who were not submissive enough to the board’. Champneys was also crown nominee on the General Medical Council from 1911 to 1926, and strove to improve the training of medical students in practical midwifery. In 1929 he was involved in founding the British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, became a foundation fellow of the College, and was elected vice-patron. He campaigned against the scourge of venereal disease as vice chairman of the ‘British Social Hygiene Council’. Champneys and Virginia had three sons (one of whom was killed in the First World War) and a daughter. He was created a baronet in 1910, succeeded in the title by his youngest and only surviving son, a doctor who became deputy Chief Medical Officer. Champneys died in 1930, remembered as short but good-looking, energetic, talkative, and ‘bubbling over with laughter’. Philip Steer is Emeritus Editor, BJOG. For a full disclosure of interests, please go to www.BJOG.org. Image source: Wellcome Library, London, ICV No 26591. Reproduced under CC BY 4.0 License.■