Sir Francis Champneys, 1st Baronet

Sir Francis Henry Champneys, 1st Baronet, FRCP (25 March 1848 in London – 30 July 1930 in Nutley, Sussex, England) was an eminent obstetrician known for raising the status of midwives in the early twentieth century, by his campaigning for their training and certification and for supporting the founding of the History of Medicine Society in 1912. As a child and before the invention of perforation, Champneys would spend Sunday afternoons cutting sheets of stamps. He was awarded a scholarship to be educated at Winchester College, one of the ancient public schools of England, and later Brasenose College, Oxford. He then, in 1871, became a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, qualifying in 1888.

Legacy

Champneys particularly championed raising the status of midwives and was the main driving force of the Midwives Act 1902, which he did by being the first chairman of the Central Midwives’ Board from 1902 until his death in 1930. The act required midwives to be trained and examined in a maternity hospital. They then had to be on the register of the central midwives board.

He was the crown nominee from 1911 to 1926 of the General Medical Council. Champneys was created a baronet in 1910.