TOWNSHEND, John (1798-1863), of Balls Park, Hertfordshire

‘A Whig of rather a decided stamp’, Townshend, perhaps best known for his rancorous electoral rivalry with Sir Robert Peel in Tamworth, shared the Foxite principles of his father, Lord John Townshend, MP for Cambridge University 1780-4, Westminster 1788-90, and Knaresborough 1793-1818.1The Times, 14 Sept. 1863; HP Commons, 1754-1790, iii. 553; ibid., 1790-1820, v. 406-8; W.P. Courtney, ‘Lord John Townshend MP, friend of Charles Fox’, in his Eight friends of the great (1910), 172-83. When Townshend was finally returned for Tamworth at the third attempt in 1847 he declared that a ‘strong attachment to liberal principles was the great characteristic of his family’, before praising Lord John Russell as:

one of the greatest and most consistent statesmen this country had ever produced; and he believed him to be a faithful and consistent exponent of the principles advocated and espoused by the greatest of English statesmen – Fox.2Daily News, 20 Dec. 1847.

He was generally silent in the House, although his rare speeches displayed the same immoderate tone which characterised his out-of-doors orations. A ‘popular officer,’ one newspaper later regretted that Townshend had not ‘taken an active part’ in naval debates.3The Standard, 7 Jan. 1856. With his brother-in-law Lord Dudley Stuart (1803-54), Liberal MP for Marylebone 1847-54, Townshend was a ‘warm supporter’ of Polish independence, ‘even when it was at a comparative discount’.4The Times, 14 Sept. 1863; Gent. Mag. (1863), ii. 503.

A former classmate of Townshend’s recalled that as a boy he had ‘a highly eccentric and unbending turn of mind’. He was also precocious and possessed ‘a daring and undaunted spirit, which never deserted him’.5Norfolk Chronicle, 19 Sept. 1863. Townshend entered the navy in 1814, and had risen to the rank of captain by the time he offered as a Whig for Tamworth, which had previously been shared between his family and the Peels, at the 1837 general election.6Staffordshire Advertiser, 1 July 1837. During the election Townshend complained that he had not had ‘fair play’ and after his defeat by Peel and another Conservative he alleged that Sir Robert ‘under the mask of secrecy had exerted his utmost influence … in utter contempt of reiterated declarations and promises solemnly and publicly made’.7Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 July 1837; The Times, 27 July 1837; N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1949), 194. An incensed Peel challenged Townshend to a duel, which was only averted by their two friends Henry Hardinge MP and Rowland Alston MP. The latter secured an apology from Townshend that Hardinge accepted on Peel’s behalf.8Ibid., 194-5; N. Gash, Sir Robert Peel (1972), 189-90. In his absence abroad, Townshend was again brought forward by his supporters at the 1841 general election, but was once more beaten by Peel and his colleague.9The Times, 29 June 1841; Staffordshire Advertiser, 19, 26 June 1841, 3 July 1841.

Townshend came in unopposed for Tamworth at a by-election in December 1847, his path smoothed by a split among local Conservatives. The outcome was not to the taste of Peel’s brother Edmund, who sniped that Townshend was ‘a violent party man, & not possessing much property in the district’.10Edmund Peel to Sir Robert Peel, 30 Nov. 1847, Add. 40599, f. 423. Edmund asked rhetorically of Townshend ‘what can he ever do for the borough? – a less influential man could not have been found’.11Edmund Peel to Sir Robert Peel, n.d., Add. 40599, f. 472. However, Sir Robert made no attempt to prevent Townshend’s return, prompting the new member to commend the baronet’s ‘straightforward conduct’.12Daily News, 20 Dec. 1847. In his maiden speech, 6 Mar. 1848, Townshend described the income tax as ‘the most odious and the least palatable to the people’ in the history of the country.13Hansard, 6 Mar. 1848, vol. 97, cc. 258-9. However, he then argued ‘that the apathy and stupidity of the people have brought it on themselves, and they deserve to pay the penalty of their folly’, and reluctantly supported its renewal for a further three years.14Ibid., 259, 262-3. In the same speech he criticised the efforts of Joseph Hume and other radicals to reduce naval and military expenditure and angrily complained about a public speech of Richard Cobden the previous year, which had observed that the navy was idle much of the time. ‘A greater injustice was never done to the Navy – a greater libel never was uttered’, Townshend protested.15Ibid., 261-2. Unsurprisingly, Townshend opposed Cobden’s attempt the following year to reduce public spending to 1835 levels and he was unsympathetic to the ‘little Charter’ of political reforms promoted by Hume.

Townshend was, however, a firm free trader, supporting the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849, while opposing Disraeli’s motions to relieve agriculture. His only other recorded parliamentary speech, 14 May 1852, against the Derby government’s militia bill, was notable for its personal attack on Disraeli. After dredging up Disraeli’s relentless derision of Peel in 1846, Townshend defended his late colleague for ‘abrogating an odious and an unjust law, giving cheap bread to the poorer classes, and adding to the few comforts that fall to their lot’. Until Disraeli adopted ‘a different line of policy to that which he has hitherto advocated, neither he nor the Government to which he belongs will have my confidence, my support, or my respect’, Townshend concluded. In the same speech Townshend argued forcefully that the country ought not to look to militias for protection, but the navy, the ‘“wooden walls” of old England, which the country has ever regarded as its great bulwark and safeguard’.16Hansard, 14 May 1852, vol. 121, cc. 648-51.

Townshend was returned unopposed at the 1852 general election, when he expressed support for free trade, the Ecclesiastical Titles Act and a £5 rental franchise. He described Disraeli as a ‘man without a particle of political integrity’, had an equally low opinion of Lord Derby, but again spoke warmly of Russell.17Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. He divided in favour of Villiers’s free trade motion, 27 Nov. 1852, and continued to cast votes in favour of Jewish relief. He backed Roebuck’s motion that brought down Aberdeen’s government, 29 Jan. 1855, but opposed later attempts to censure Palmerston’s handling of the Crimean war. Townshend had inherited the family estates in Tamworth and Norfolk in 1853 on the death of his cousin Lord Charles Townshend, who had also represented Tamworth.18The Times, 14 Sept. 1863. In 1855, when he succeeded his cousin as 4th marquess Townshend, his berth at Tamworth was taken by his only son and heir John Villiers Stuart Townshend, viscount Raynham (1831-99), the last of the family to represent the borough. After his elevation to the Lords, Townshend ‘invariably supported the government of Lord Palmerston’.19Morning Post, 14 Sept. 1863. On Townshend’s sudden death from an ‘apoplectic fit’ after a day’s hunting in 1863, the family estates and titles passed to Raynham.20The Times, 14 Sept. 1863; Gent. Mag. (1863), ii. 503. One obituary said of Townshend, that ‘in his manners he had all the plain spoken frankness of a British sailor’.21Hertfordshire Guardian, 12 Sept. 1863.