Thomas Champness

Born in 1832, Thomas Champness was a British Wesleyan Methodist minister remembered for his strongly evangelistic preaching and religious writing. Contemporary and archival sources identify him as the founder of the Joyful News Mission, showing that his work reached beyond the pulpit into organized mission activity.

Champness was notable enough in his own time to be discussed in later studies of Methodist spirituality, where he is described as one of the more intensely evangelistic Wesleyan preachers of the late Victorian period. A full-length biography, The Life-Story of Thomas Champness by Eliza M. Champness, was published in 1907, shortly after his death, which suggests the scale of his influence among readers and church communities.

He died in 1905. While many personal details are harder to confirm cleanly from readily accessible sources, the surviving records consistently present him as a preacher, mission founder, and religious author whose work was closely tied to Methodist revival and outreach.