William Henry Christopher Payne (1858-1904) was a barrister and local politician.
Born in Kensington, he was the son of William Henry Payne, a medical practitioner and his wife Maria. In the the 1880s he studied law and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. In 1890 he married Emily Rachel Bayley at St Jude's Church, South Kensington.
He spent two periods as a Moderate Party member of the London County Council. In March 1894 he attempted to win the seat vacated by the Progressive Party's James Thomas Macnamara at Southwark, Rotherhithe but was beaten by Howell Jones Williams by 111 votes. In May 1894 the other councillor representing Rotherhithe, Lawrence Stevens, died. At the ensuing by-election in June he gained the seat for the Moderates by the margin of 548 votes. At the next regular county council elections in 1895 he held the seat by 213 votes and succeeded in bringing his Moderate Party running mate, Arthur Henry Aylmer Morton, onto the council. In December 1897 he was appointed to the Thames Conservancy Board. At the next county council elections in 1898 the Progressives regained both Rotherhithe seats. Payne was able to return to the county council within weeks when he was elected unopposed to fill a vacancy at St George Hanover Square when the the sitting member, Robert Antrobus was elevated to the aldermanic bench. He stood down fromthe county council at the 1901 elections.
In the 1901 census he was living at 14 Victoria Square, Belgravia and was described as retired and classified as a "lunatic". He died in Windsor three years later.
Author of The electors' record : being a list of the metropolitan parliamentary candidates : a collection of their opinions published in 1885 and co-author of The Metropolitan Water Supply (1891) and The parish councillor's guide to the local government act, 1894.
For his near namesake William Henry Schofield Payne, London based actor, dancer and pantomimist, see [1].