Colonel Sir William Alfred Churchman, 1st Baronet, VD, JP, DL (23 August 1863 – 25 November 1947[1]) was an English tobacco manufacturer and public servant.
He went into partnership with his brother, Arthur, in the family tobacco firm which had been founded by their great-grandfather in 1790.
Churchman was a staunch Conservative and was elected mayor of Ipswich in 1901.
He retired in 1912, but returned to command the battalion's recruiting section at the outbreak of the First World War.
[4] He was created a Baronet of Melton, in the County of Suffolk on 29 June 1938,[5] which became extinct upon his death.