Sir Cyril David Townsend (6C47)

Date of Birth: 21 Dec 1937
Date of Death: 20 Nov 2013
Generation: 9th
Residence: Pewsey, Wilts
Father: Lieut Colonel Cyril Moseley Townsend [6C28]
Mother: Henderson, Lois Isabel
Spouse:
  1. Walshe, Anita Sarah Weldon
Issue:
  1. Hugh Cyril Weldon [6C56]
  2. John Weldon [6C57]
See Also: Table VIC ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree

Notes for Sir Cyril David Townsend

Married 1976 at St Mary Magdalene, Broadwas-on-Teme, Worcester. Anita Sarah Weldon Walshe was the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel FGW Walshe MC.

Cyril was educated at Bradfield and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst following which he was commissioned into the Durham Light Infantry (DLI). He saw action in Cyprus and Borneo, was ADC to the Governor Kong Kong following which he was Adjutant 1st Battalion DLI.

Leaving the Army in 1968, Cyril joined the Conservative Party in Totnes and was selected by Ted Heath to be one of his personal assistants. Elected Conservative MP for Bexley Heath in 1974 with a majority of 3,686 votes, when he left politics in 1992 he had increased this majority to 14,086. During his Parliamentary career he introduced a private member's bill that became the Protection of Children Act 1978.

Cyril was knighted in the New Year Honours 1997 and defected to the Liberal Democrats in the summer of 2005 in support of Sir Ming Campbell’s leadership campaign. He was a Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding 1995-2002 and was a respected journalist for several newspapers in the Middle East.