Public official. Student at Eton. B.A. Oxford, 1850. Justice of the peace for Devonshire; also deputy lieutenant. Shareholder in East India Co. (East-India Register, 1850 and other dates). Delivered lectures and addresses some of which he published: Paris, 1868; Rome, Ancient and Modern (two lectures), 1868; both items published for benefit of Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (MacmilIan, Bibliographical Catalogue); William Pitt and William Gladstone, 1887. Contributed to Fraser's. Edited Note Book of Sir John Northcote, 1877. Author of Ballads from Hebrew History, 1873; and Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne, 1878.

The first item listed below is not a joint writing of the two contributors whose names are attached to it; it consists of two separate sections (unrelated except by the fact that both are motivated by the Indian Mutiny), placed under the joint heading obviously by the editorial office. The first section—the longer—has no subtitle; the second has the subtitle “Indian English". The order of names attached to the item indicates that the first section is by Townsend, the second by Hamilton. The payment allotment—two guineas to Townsend, one guinea to Hamilton—confirms this ascription. "Indian English" protests against the "barbaric words" appearing in news accounts from India. "Am I to sit down to my Times", asks the writer, "with a Tamil lexicon on one side and a Teloogoo on the other?" "Hard Roads", based on a French source, deals with taxes exacted from travellers in Japan. The item was paid for by post-office order.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1973.