Researching Richard Townsend

He was the only son of Richard Townsend and his wife Elizabeth FitzGerald, daughter of John FitzGerald, 15th Knight of Kerry. His uncles were Maurice FitzGerald, 16th Knight of Kerry and John Townsend. Townsend entered the Irish House of Commons in 1782 and sat for Dingle until he resigned his seat in 1795. He was appointed High Sheriff of County Cork for 1785.

On 16 May 1784, he married Henrietta Newenham, daughter of John Newenham, and by her he had eight sons and a daughter.

Townsend was in his mid 30s when he established a spot for himself in the state cricket team, by which time his football career had ended. He had been one of the best pre-war players in the SAFL, playing in Norwood's 1904 and 1907 premiership sides. An interstate representative at the 1908 Melbourne Carnival, Townsend had one of his best league seasons in 1909 when he topped the SAFL goal-kicking list. In 1911 he was Norwood's leading goal-kicker for the second time and in 1912 he won their "Best and Fairest" award. He continued playing after the war, by which time he was a veteran of the club and was rewarded with the captaincy in 1920, his final season. Norwood made it all the way to the grand final that year but lost to North Adelaide.

With his football career almost over, Townsend was recalled to the South Australian cricket team in 1918/19, after an eleven-year gap between appearances. He had previously, in 1907/08, played a Sheffield Shield match, where he didn't bowl yet batted far down the order at nine. His role this time was more clear and in his return match, against Victoria, he took 5–27 in their second innings and opening the batting in the first.

Although he was an all-rounder, he only once passed 50 in 17 first-class matches. That innings coincided with one of his best ever bowling performances, in the 1921/22 Shield season against New South Wales at Adelaide Oval. He took seven wickets in total for the match, five of them in the first innings, and put together scores of 46 and 117 with the bat. The 46 had equaled his highest first-class score and his century, made in the fourth innings, was made with 18 boundaries. His innings helped South Australia to a score of 406 but it wasn't enough for victory as they fell 17 runs short. He had nonetheless become just the third South Australian cricketer to take a five wicket haul and score a century in the same first-class match. Eight of the nine previous instances that feat had been achieved for South Australian were from Norwood footballer and Test cricketer George Giffen.

After his last first-class match, in 1923/24, Townsend continued playing grade cricket for Sturt until his retirement in 1928.