Reverend Richard Townsend (612)

Date of Birth: 1774
Date of Death: 6 Mar 1808
Generation: 5th
Residence: Magourney, Co Cork.
Father: Reverend Edward Synge (The Apostle) Townsend [601]
Mother: Elizabeth Townsend [144]
Spouse:
  1. Hume, Henrietta Murray
Issue:
  1. Edward Hume [626]
  2. John Hume [627]
  3. Jane [628]
See Also: Table VI ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree

Notes for Reverend Richard Townsend

Married June 1802. Henrietta Hume (1) was the daughter of the Very Rev John Hume, Dean of Derry. (2)

Alumni Trinity College Dublin from Co Cork and Kerry 1593-1860 in Dr Casey's Collection records that Richard was taught by Mr Dwyer before he entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 5 December 1791 aged 17 as a pensioner who paid a fixed sum annually for his studies. The TCD Graduation List records that he qualified BA in Spring 1797. Richard Townsend [508] was an undergraduate at Trinity at the same time.

Ordained Deacon at Cloyne on 13 November 1796 and Priest at Cork on 25 July 1797, Richard succeeded his father in 1799 as Priest at Killenemer and Rector Ballyvourney. From 1801 until his death he was Priest at Lackeen and Rector of Magourney, Co Cork. See page 302/303 of Brady's Parochial and Clerical Records Volume 2 for a summary of Richard's ministry.

Burke's Irish Family Records incorrectly show his death as 1886. Richard was buried at Christchurch, Cork on 17 March 1808.

Aged 60, Henrietta joined her son Edward Hume Townsend in Belgaum, India three days before Christmas 1838 having ridden across the isthmus of Suez on a donkey and was lost in the desert for a time. She accompanied him on all his future travels for the next three years. Edward was a Collector and Political Agent for the East India Company and later Secretary to the Bombay Government and Revenue Commissioner to The Presidency.

(1) Henrietta was born in 1779. She died at Bath on 29 January 1851. John FitzHenry Townsend shows here as Harriet Hume.

(2) The Very Rev John Hume was the son of James Hume, Apothecary of Oxford, whose memorial can be seen on the wall of the old college church of St. Mary the Virgin on High Street, Oxford. James Hume's brother, John Hume, was Bishop of Salisbury, and sometime Bishop of Oxford and Dean of St. Pauls. In his Journal, Richard and Henrietta's son, Edward Hume Townsend recalls visiting his relatives in Salisbury.

'An Officer of the Long Parliament' Ch XII p. 268.