Born at Bow, the son of the Rev Charles Champneys, Rector of St Botolph's in the City of London, and Minor Canon of Windsor. He was educated at Guy's Hospital, and first practised at Slough, where he was Surgeon to the Police, and to the Great Western Railway whilst the branch to Windsor was under construction. The accidents were treated by Champneys in the Eton Union. He next removed to Battle in 1861, and in 1867 to Penge, where he was Surgeon to the Dispensary and Lying-in Charity and was in partnership with Victor Edwin Travers-Smith. Whilst at Slough Champneys was called in January, 1845, to the woman Sarah Hart, who had been poisoned with prussic acid by the Quaker John Tawell. The defence put forward that some apple pips present in the stomach accounted for the prussic acid found. Champneys' medical evidence was important, and Tawell was hanged. The report of the post-mortem appearances in the case of Sarah Hart is in the *Lancet*, 1845, i, 379, 384, and 414. His election to the Fellowship followed upon the treatment of the accidents above mentioned, and this case. He was later elected to the Court of the Society of Apothecaries. He died from angina pectoris on February 11th, 1895.