Major Ernest Townshend (536)

Date of Birth: 23 Mar 1860
Date of Death: dsp Jun 1929
Generation: 8th
Residence: Rose Vale, Co Wexford
Father: John Hancock Townshend [523]
Mother: Tower, Katherine
Spouse:
  1. Routledge, Agnes Mary
Issue: None
See Also: Table V ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree

Notes for Major Ernest Townshend

Married January 1899 (1). Nothing is known about Agnes Routledge who was born in Australia in 1864.

Ernest was educated at Uppingham (2) and the Royal Military Academy following which he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 6 April 1879 (3). Promoted Captain 1st April 1889 and Major on 19 November 1897 he retired from the Army on 2 March 1908 (4). He was Mentioned in Dispatches during the Ashanti campaign (5).

Nothing further is know about Ernest after he left the Army.

Guy's City and County Cork Almanac and Directory for 1907 page 380 shows Ernest and his brother Arthur Edward Townshend [537] living at Myross - "Townshend A E, Myross wood" and "Townshend Major Ernest, R E, Myross wood".

The April 1911 Irish Census records Ernest as a retired Major RE aged 51 living at Newbay, Carrick, Wexford with his wife, a female visitor named Beatrice Hancock and three domestic staff. The house consisted of thirteen rooms, four stables, two coach houses and a futher eleven outbuildings.

(1) Entry in the diary of Agnes Townsend [334] - '1899 January 5th. About same time Major Ernest Townsend to Miss Routledge of Eastbourne'.

(2) His distant cousin Thomas Loftus Uniacke Townsend [5C02] was there at the same time.

(3) London Gazette 24710 page 2869.

(4) London Gazette 28115 page 1497.

(5) It is not known whether this was during the Fourth Ashanti War or The War of the Golden Stool