Researching John Townsend

Townsend was a Quaker born in Philadelphia, the son of Charles Townsend and Priscilla Kirk. He attended Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania and was trained as a physician and pharmacist. He developed an interest in natural history in general and bird collecting in particular. In 1833, he was invited by the botanist Thomas Nuttall to join him on Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's second expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Townsend collected a number of animals new to science. These included birds such as the mountain plover, Vaux's swift, chestnut-collared longspur, black-throated grey warbler, Townsend's warbler and sage thrasher, and a number of mammals such as the Douglas squirrel; several of these were described by Bachman (1839) from samples collected by Townsend.

Originally from Sale, Townsend came to Melbourne and made his league debut in 1962.

He played as a rover and was handy near goals, topping the club's goalkicking in their premiership season of 1964 with 35 of them.

Townsend won Melbourne's Best and Fairest award in both 1965 and 1969.

He finished his career in the Victorian Football Association with Prahran.

In 2003 he was selected in Prahran's Team of the Century.

Born in Deptford, in the south eastern suburbs of London, Townsend was the son of an auctioneer and estate agent in the neighbouring town of Greenwich. He began acting at the age of 12. In 1841 he married Sarah Mitchell, also an actor, and they had at least seven children all of whom were trained for the stage. In 1842 he took out a lease on the Theatre Royal in Richmond, specialising in Shakespearian productions.

In 1852 his father died, and Townsend gave up acting to take over the family business. In 1857 he was approached by the Liberals to run in the general election of that year in opposition to one of the sitting members of parliament for Greenwich, Montague Chambers. Chambers had been elected as a Liberal in 1852, but had since left the party to run as an independent. Townsend was only approached two days before nominations for the election were made, but was very well known in the area, and easily defeated Chambers. Soon after the election it was alleged that Townsend was ineligible for election as he did not have an annual income of £300. In March 1858 he was adjudged bankrupt. He was suspended from the House of Commons, and came to an arrangement to pay off his debts within 12 months.

He returned to the stage in an attempt to pay off his creditors, playing leading roles in a number of London theatres where was billed as "John Townsend, MP". After a prolonged attempt to retain his seat, he resigned by becoming Steward of the Manor of Northstead in February 1859.

Townsend became the manager of the Theatre Royal, Leicester, and by 1862 had discharged his debts. He emigrated to Canada in May 1862, purchasing a farm outside Kingston, Ontario. He returned to acting in 1864, and in 1868 the family moved to Hamilton. They formed the "Townsend Family Star Dramatic Troupe" and toured Canada and the United States.

In 1877 Townsend became seriously ill in Indiana and had to leave the travelling company. He became a teacher of acting and elocution in Hamilton, where Julia Arthur was his most famous student. Townsend died in 1892 of liver cancer.

He was the third son of Richard Townsend, son of Bryan Townsend, and his second wife Elizabeth Beecher, daughter of Henry Beecher and granddaughter of Thomas Beecher. In 1783, Townsend entered the Irish House of Commons for Dingle, the same constituency his brother Richard Townsend had also represented, and sat for it until 1797. In the following year he was elected for Doneraile and Castlemartyr (Parliament of Ireland constituency), representing the latter until the Act of Union in 1801.

In 1769, he married Mary Morris, daughter of Jonas Morris. They had four daughters and four sons.

Townsend was born on August 24, 1824, in Morganfield, Kentucky.

Townsend moved to Putnam County, Indiana with his family. He later moved to Albia, Iowa. He studied law and was admitted to the Iowa bar. He served in the Iowa House of Representatives from December 6, 1852, to December 3, 1854, and later served as Iowa district judge.

Townsend died on April 23, 1892, in Albia, Iowa, at the age of 67.