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Champion
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Champion

mart sloop, which he brought home and paid off in 1827. He had no further employment, and in 1833 was placed on the retired list of the navy, on which he was promoted to be captain on 1 April 1856.

On his retirement Chamier settled in the neighbourhood of Waltham Abbey and devoted himself to literary pursuits. He was the author of several novels, which, humble imitations of Marryat's, had at one time a considerable popularity, though now almost forgotten. Amongst these may be named 'Life of a Sailor' (1832); 'Ben Brace' (1836), 'The Arethusa' (1837), 'Jack Adams' (1838), 'Tom Bowline' (1841). Of greater real value was his work of editing and continuing down to 1827 James's 'Naval History' (1837), in the introduction to which he cleverly and good-humouredly disposed of some disparaging criticisms on the original work which had been made by Captain E. P. Brenton [q. v.] In 1848 Chamier was in Paris, and in the following year published an account of what then took place under the title 'A Review of the French Revolution of 1848.' A few years later he published 'My Travels; an Unsentimental Journey through France, Switzerland, and Italy' (3 vols. post 8vo, 1855). The narrative of this journey, taken in the company of his wife and daughter, is apparently meant to be autobiographical; but it is written throughout in such a detestably would-be facetious style that it is difficult to say what part of it is true and what is only meant to be funny. He died in October 1870. He married in 1832 Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. John Soane of Chelsea, and grand-daughter of Sir John Soane.

[O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Times, 2 Nov. 1870.]

J. K. L.


CHAMPION, ANTHONY (1725–1801), poet and versifier, was the son of Peter Champion, a member of a family long resident in the parish of St. Columb in Cornwall, who acquired a considerable fortune as a merchant at Leghorn. He was born at Croydon on 5 Feb. 1724-5, and was first educated at Cheam School. In 1739 he was sent to Eton, and, after stoppin there for three years, matriculated at St. Mgary Hall, Oxford, in February 1742, where he was placed under the care of Walter Harte, a distinguished tutor and a respectable man of letters. At Oxford he remained for two years, when he left without taking his degree, and entered as a student at the Middle Temple. He ultimately became a bencher of the inn, and continued to reside within its precincts until his death, when he left the society the sum of 1,000l. Champion was twice returned to parliament for a Cornish borough, and on both occasions through the influence of the Eliot family. His first constituency was St. Germans (22 April 1754), the second was Liskeard (30 March 1761). In the House of Commons he sat, like the illustrious Gibbon, who also represented the latter constituency, a mute observer of the scene, and although he dabbled in poetry, his effusions remained unpublished until after his death. He died on 22 Feb. 1801, and in the same year a volume of 'Miscellanies in verse and prose, English and Latin, by the late Anthony Champion,' was published by his lifelong friend, William Henry, lord Lyttelton. Numerous entries relating to Champion's ancestors will be found in the reprint by A. J. Jewers of the registers of St. Columb Major.

[Life prefixed to Miscellanies; Return of Members of Parliament, ii. 110, 124; J. H. Jesse's Etonians, ii. 168-9.]

W. P. C.


CHAMPION, JOHN GEORGE (1815?–1854), botanist, was gazetted ensign in the 95th regiment in 1831, and embarked for foreign service in 1838, having then attained the rank of captain. After a stay in the Ionian Isles, his duties took him to Ceylon, and thence in 1847 to Hongkong. He brought his collection of dried plants to England in 1850; most of his novelties were described by Mr. Bentham in Hooker's 'Journals,' and afterwards served as part material for the 'Flora Hongkongensis.' Before leaving England for the Crimea he placed the last set of his plants in the Kew herbarium. He was wounded at Inkermann, 5 Nov. 1854, and gazetted lieutenant-colonel for his conduct in that battle, but he only enjoyed the rank a short time, dying in hospital at Scutari 30 Nov. following, aged 38. His name is commemorated in the genus Championia, and among other plants by the splendid Rhodoleia Championi.

[Hart's Annual Army List, 1840, 1853; Bentham's Flora Hongkongensis, pp. 8*-9*; Gardeners' Chronicle (1854), pp. 819-20; Mohl u. Schlechtendals Bot. Zeit. xiii. (1855), p. 488.]

B. D. J.


CHAMPION, JOSEPH (fl. 1762), calligrapher, was born at Chatham in 1709. He was educated partly in St. Paul's school, but chiefly under the eminent penman, Charles Snell, who kept Sir John Johnson's free school in Foster Lane, and with whom he served a regular apprenticeship. Afterwards he opened a boarding-school in St. Paul's Churchyard, and in 1761 he was master of a 'new academy' in Bedford Street, near Bedford Row.

His principal works are: 1. 'Practical Arithmetic, 733. 2. 'Penmanship: or, the Art of Fair Writing,' London, 1740; oblong