Chauncy Townsend (23 February 1708 – 28 March 1770) was a

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

merchant and a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

in the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

. He was prominent in developing coalmines in the

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

area of

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and in supplying settler needs in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

Career

The son of Jonathan Townsend, he started his business career as a London linen draper, before becoming a merchant in about 1740. He developed extensive interests in coal mines in the Swansea area, along with mining, smelting, and refining copper and lead. From 1744, he was as a government contractor supplying military and settler needs in

. By the time of his death, most of Townsend's money had been consumed by the mining business.

Parliament

Townsend was a regular supporter, in the House of Commons, of whatever government the King appointed. He represented Westbury between 1748 and 1768. He was elected for

Wigtown Burghs Wigtown Burghs, also known as Wigton Burghs,. was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885. It was represent ...

in 1768 and sat for them until his death in 1770. He was the second Englishman to be elected and the first to actually sit in Parliament, for any Scottish constituency. Despite being a Member of Parliament for 22 years, he is not recorded as ever having spoken in the House.

Family

Townsend married Bridget Phipps, daughter of

James Phipps James Phipps (1788 – 1853) was the first person given the experimental cowpox vaccine by Edward Jenner. Jenner knew of a local belief that dairy workers who had contracted a relatively mild infection called cowpox were immune to smallpox, and ...

in May 1730. Among their children were James Townsend MP and

Joseph Townsend Joseph Townsend (4 April 1739 – 9 November 1816) was a British medical doctor, geologist and vicar of Pewsey in Wiltshire, perhaps best known for his 1786 treatise ''A Dissertation on the Poor Laws'' in which he expounded a naturalistic theor ...

References

*''History of Parliament: House of Commons 1754-1790'', by Sir Lewis Namier and James Brooke (Sidgwick & Jackson 1964) * 1708 births 1770 deaths Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Scottish constituencies British MPs 1747–1754 British MPs 1754–1761 British MPs 1761–1768 British MPs 1768–1774 {{England-GreatBritain-MP-stub