Author: Champion, Joseph
Biography:
CHAMPION, Joseph (c. 1750-c. 1813: iranicaonline.org)
He was probably born in London, the son of the Quaker merchant Joseph Champion of Bristol and his second wife, Elizabeth Wright. Nothing is known of his education before he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1769 (matric. 1770), and he left the university without taking a degree. In 1773, out of financial necessity, he joined the EIC Bengal service and became eventually a senior merchant in Calcutta. In 1780 he married Anne Forbes there; they do not appear to have had children. In 1784 he became a member of the Asiatic Society newly founded by Sir William Jones, q.v. His The Poems of Ferdosi (1788) was generally well received in Britain; MR said that he was entitled to praise “for so new and arduous an attempt” although Champion’s verses are deemed “often feeble and prosaic.” His Poems. Imitated from the Persian includes poems in imitation of Hafiz (q.v.). In 1791, however, Champion had a breakdown after the death of his wife and returned to England. He was cared for in an asylum in Kingston, Hampshire. The Company granted him a subsistence allowance which was paid to his guardians until his death, probably in the first quarter of 1813. (iranicaonline.org 30 Apr. 2025; ancestry.com 30 Apr. 2025; Hampshire Chronicle 12 Dec. 1795; ADAD; London Gazette [1896]; MR 2 [1790], 369-76; information from David Radcliffe) HJ
Other Names:
- J. Champion