CHAMPNESS, WILLIAM HENRY {SIR}

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0074 CLC/432
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: CHAMPNESS, WILLIAM HENRY {SIR}
Date(s)	: 1873-1938
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 8 production units.
Name of creator(s)	: Champness | Sir | William Henry | 1873-1956 | knight | solicitor

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Major Sir William Henry Champness was born in March 1873, the son of William John Champness. He married Elizabeth Butler in 1896 and had one son. Elizabeth died in 1939 and Champness married widow Ethel Harding in 1946. He lived at Knole Way, Sevenoaks, Kent. Champness was a solicitor who was involved in several City of London institutions. He was a Master of the Spectalemakers' Company and the Plumbers' Company; President of the City Livery Club; a governor of Bridewell and Bethlem Hospitals and the City and Guilds Institute; Chairman of various City Corporation Committees; a Sheriff of the City of London, 1937-38; one of the Lieutenants of the City from 1917; and an Alderman's Deputy from 1931. He was knighted in 1938. Champness conducted antiquarian research in his spare time and published histories of the Spectablemakers' Company and Plumbers' Company. He died in October 1956.

Biographical information from 'CHAMPNESS, Major Sir William Henry', Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920-2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U235642, accessed 1 June 2011].

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records of Major Sir William Henry Champness, comprising journals recording his years as undersheriff and sheriff of the City of London, 1928-1938, autobiographical notes, 1873-1925 and personal diaries, 1926-1938.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Records arranged by MS number, assigned during cataloguing at the Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section.

Conditions governing access:

Access by appointment only. Please contact staff.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London.

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

These records were donated to Guildhall Library in 1973 and were catalogued by a member of Guildhall Library staff in 1973-4. The Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section merged with the London Metropolitan Archives in 2009.

Allied Materials

Related material:

For the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers, see CLC/L/SH and for the Worshipful Company of Plumbers see CLC/L/PH.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Records prepared May to September 2011.