Henry Challinor (1814-1882)

Henry Challinor, F.R.C.S. (Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, a medical qualification in Ireland and Britain), was a doctor and member of assembly for West Moreton and Ipswich.

Challinor was born on the 22nd of June 1814 in London, England. His father was James Challinor and his mother was Mary Challinor (nee Tinsdale).

John Dunmore Lang (1799-1878), a prominent figure in religion, politics, and education, aspired to organise the emigration of a selected group of people from England to Australia, including Henry Challinor, who embarked on the first passage of Lang's migrants. In January 1849, Challinor arrived in Moreton Bay on the ship Fortitude (the passengers who sailed to Australia on the Fortitude named the valley they settled in Fortitude Valley in honour of the ship) having acted as the voyage's surgeon-superintendent.

Challinor practiced medicine in Ipswich from April 1849 to 1869, when he accepted the position of surgeon-superintendent of the Woogaroo (Goodna) Asylum. In 1872, due to declining health, he quit the Asylum and took the positions of health officer for the Port of Brisbane and medical officer for Dunwich, St. Helena, Lytton Reformatory, and the Benevolent Asylum. From 1876, he was a member of the Medical Board and a medical inspector of orphan schools and in 1878, he became the first Principal Medical Officer (P.M.O.) of the Queensland Volunteer Brigade.

On the 12th of July 1855, Challinor married  Mary Bowyer Challinor (nee Hawkins) in Ipswich. They had eight children; six daughters and two sons.

Challinor opposed the reintroduction of convicts from Britain arriving by ship and he supported and campaigned for the separation of Queensland from New South Wales, accomplished on the 10th of December 1859. He was successfully elected to the West Moreton assembly in January 1861, though he had been a member of the first Legislative Assembly in Queensland. He had been elected in the first Legislative Assembly, but was disqualified from holding his seat as he was the coroner in Ipswich, which was considered 'an office of profit under the Crown'. He was reelected to the West Moreton seat in May 1861 and sat until May 1863 when he took a seat in the Ipswich Assembly. He was unsuccessful in reelection in 1868.

In 1863, Ipswich Grammar school, the first grammar school in Queensland, was established with Challinor's assistance and he was a chairman of trustees of the school.

Challinor died on the 9th of September 1882 at Kangaroo Point, survived by his son H. M. Challinor who worked in the Police Department.