The British 400 metres athletics champions covers four competitions; the current British Athletics Championships which was founded in 2007, [1] the preceding AAA Championships (1880-2006), the Amateur Athletic Club Championships (1866-1879) and finally the UK Athletics Championships which existed from 1977 until 1997 and ran concurrently with the AAA Championships. [2]
The AAA Championships were open to international athletes but were not considered the National Champion in this list if they won the relevant Championship. Between 1977 and 1994, and again in 1997, two events effectively crowned national champions each year. The official UK Athletics Championships (not to be confused with the current championships, a rebranded British Athletics Championships) were specifically only open to British nationals and were organised by the national governing body. The AAA Championships continued, and due to their history, continued to be considered by both statisticians and athletes to be the more prestigious championships, with the exception of 1997 where the UK Championships were considered the principle championships for the only time. Winners at the UK Championships were nonetheless considered as having won a national title.
The UK Athletics Championships ceased to exist upon the insolvency of the governing body, the British Athletics Federation. The AAA championships continued until 2006, before they were replaced by the new British Athletics Championships. David Jenkins, with nine AAA titles, including eight successive titles between 1971 and 1978 and again in 1982, and a single UK Athletics Championships gold medal in 1980, is the most successful 400 metre athlete in British domestic history. Linda Keough won eight national women's titles, five AAA and three UK championships; on three occasions she won both titles in the same year, while Joslyn Hoyte-Smith won seven titles in the two championships era, again winning both titles in three separate years; but Valerie Ball's six successive AAA wins in the immediate post-war era where only one championship was available annually means she is normally considered the most successful domestic British female athlete in the event, crowned national champion in six separate years.