Author: Townshend, Chauncy Hare
Biography:
TOWNSHEND, Chauncy Hare, formerly TOWNSEND (1798-1868: ODNB)
Man of letters and collector, he was born on 20 Apr. 1798 and baptised at Godalming, Surrey, on 16 May, the son of Charlotte Winter (Lake) and Henry Hare Townsend of Busbridge Hall, Godalming, and of Walpole, Norfolk. Educated at Eton College (1811-15) and at his father’s college of Trinity Hall, Cambridge (matric. 1817, BA 1821, MA 1824), he won the Chancellor’s Medal for his poem “Jerusalem” in 1817. He had already determined that he would be a poet and in 1815 had made contact with Robert Southey (q.v.), who encouraged him. His Poems of 1821 was well received, with a second edition under the title The Weaver’s Boy in 1825, but his next venture was an anonymous satire in 1827 and he did not produce another collection of verse until 1851. (He did however contribute occasionally to annuals and periodicals.) Townsend was ordained deacon and priest in 1823 and often identified himself as “Rev.” on title-pages, but after being appointed as a curate to one Cambridgeshire living he did not practice his profession. He was a notorious hypochondriac and spent most of his time living in Lausanne, Switzerland, for his health. He married Elizabeth (or Eliza) Frances Northcott at Hornsey (now north London) on 2 May 1826 but they proved incompatible, had no children, and officially separated in 1845. At some point after 1826—ODNB says 1828—he changed the spelling of his surname to Townshend. He contributed reviews and essays to Blackwood’s and wrote books on subjects that interested him, including Facts in Mesmerism (1840), A Descriptive Tour in Scotland (2nd edn. 1846), and Mesmerism Proved True (1854). He became a close friend of Charles Dickens, whom he met in 1840 and named as his literary executor. Late verses include Sermons in Sonnets (1851); Philosophy of the Fens (1851) under the pseudonym “T. Greatley”; and The Three Gates (1859), dedicated to Dickens. Townshend died at his London home, 21 Norfolk St., Park Lane, on 25 Feb. 1868 and was buried on 2 Mar. 1868 at Godalming Nightingale, Surrey. He divided his collections of art, jewels, antiquities, etc. between the South Kensington Museum (the V&A) and the Wisbech Museum, the latter receiving his splendid library. (ODNB 4 Sept. 2024; ancestry.com 4 Sept. 2024; findmypast.com 4 Sept. 2024; ACAD; GM n.s. 2:5 [1868], 545-6; CCEd 4 Sept. 2024; Norfolk News 9 May 1868) HJ
Other Names:
- Chauncy Hare Townsend