Townshend, Charles

▪ British statesman

born August 27, 1725

died September 4, 1767, London, England

      British chancellor of the Exchequer whose measures for the taxation of the British-American colonies intensified the hostilities that eventually led to the American Revolution.

      He was the second son of the 3rd Viscount Townshend. As a member of the Board of Trade from 1749 to 1754, he showed an interest in increasing British powers of taxation and control over the colonies. In 1754 and 1755 he served on the Board of Admiralty. He was secretary at war in 1761–62 and paymaster general from May 1765 to July 1766, when he became chancellor of the Exchequer in the ministry of William Pitt (Pitt, William, the Elder), the Elder. Soon Pitt became severely ill, and Townshend assumed effective control of the administration.

      Townshend proved to be financially brilliant and determined but devoid of sound political judgment. In his last official act before his death, he obtained passage (June–July 1767) of four resolutions (Townshend Acts) that threatened American colonial traditions of self-government and imposed revenue duties on a number of items necessary to the colonies. The provision that customs revenue would be used to pay officials caused concern among the colonists because it reduced the dependence of such officials on the colonial assemblies. Townshend estimated that the acts would produce the insignificant sum of £40,000 for the British Treasury; shrewder observers correctly prophesied that they would lead to the loss of the colonies.

Additional Reading

Lewis Namier and John Brooke, Charles Townshend (1964).

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