Harry George Champion

Who was Harry George Champion?

Sir Harry George Champion CIE was a forest officer in British India who created a classification of the forest types of India and Burma.

He studied at New College, Oxford, and obtained a degree in chemistry in 1912 and then studied botany and forestry under William Schlich. He joined the Indian Forest Service in 1915 and became a silviculturist at the Forest Research Institute at Dehradun staying there until 1936 before becoming a Conservator in the United Provinces. He left India in 1939 and became a Professor of Forestry at Oxford, succeeding Robert Scott Troup. Troup had offered him a position at the Imperial Forestry Institute in 1924 but Champion chose not to join it. He married Troup's secretary Crystal Parsons.

Champion published an initial classification of the forest types of India and Burma in 1936. This was revised in 1968 by S K. Seth and this is referred to as the Champion-Seth classification. His younger brother F. W. Champion was also a forester in India and a pioneer in wildlife photography.