William Champ
British-Australian soldier, politician, first Premier of Tasmania
William Thomas Napier Champ (15 April 1808 – 25 August 1892) was a British soldier and Colonial Australian politician and penal administrator, who served as the first Premier of Tasmania from 1856 to 1857.
Early life
Champ was born in Maldon, Essex, England. He joined the army as an ensign when he was 18 years old and later became an adjutant.
Army and police career
Champ was serving with the 63rd Regiment of Foot as an ensign by 1826 and was posted with them to Sydney, Colony of New South Wales in October 1828. Some of the regiment was detached as a garrison force for the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania) in 1829, and Champ was amongst them.
As a lieutenant with the 63rd, he participated in the Black War campaign which was an attempt to segregate Tasmanian Aborigines near the end of 1830.
The 63rd left New South Wales and Van Diemens Land in 1834 to deploy to India and Burma and Champ left with the regiment. However, he had apparently enjoyed his time in Australia and later in 1834 he resigned his army commission and returned to Van Diemens Land to enter the civil service. Champ then became an assistant police magistrate, before being appointed as the commandant of Port Arthur penitentiary (succeeding Charles O'Hara Booth) in 1844.
In March 1857 Champ was appointed as inspector-general of penal establishments in Victoria, a position he held until his resignation on 31 December 1868.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “William Champ” as british-Australian soldier, politician, first Premier of Tasmania. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british-Australian soldier, politician, first Premier of Tasmania. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3568495. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1808, 1892, 1856 and 1857.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Champ” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.