Townshend
Townshend names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Townshend SIR CHARLES VERE FERRERS, a British general
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR CHARLES VERE FERRERS, a British general, born in 1861. He entered the Royal Marines in 1881, but preferring the army to the navy, became a soldier in 1886 and was promoted through the ordinary grades, becoming major general in 1911. He was included in the Sudan and Nile expeditions of 1884 and 1885, and in the Hunza Nagar expeditions of 1891 and 1892. He was in command at Chitral Fort, and served in the Dongola expedition in 1898 and in the South African War in 1899-1900. Afterward he did service in India and was assistant adjutant general of the Ninth Division Army there in 1907-1909. In 1912-1913 he was in command of a division of the Territorial Force. When the European war broke out in 1914 he became commander-in-chief of the British forces in Mesopotamia and was shut up by the Turks for five months in Kut el Amara, at the end of which in April, 1916, he surrendered with his army and was taken prisoner.
Townshend CHARLES, an English statesman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CHARLES, an English statesman; grandson of the 2d Viscount; born in 1725; entered the House SIR CHARLES VERE FERRERS TOWNSHEND of Commons in 1747; and became a commissioner of trade and plantations in 1749. He was a lord of the admiralty in 1754, member of the privy-council in 1756, secretary of war in 1761-1763; chancellor of the exchequer in 1766. He supported Granville's stamp act (1765), and introduced the celebrated resolutions for taxing the American colonies (June 2, 1767). From so often changing his political opinions he was known as the "weathercock," but he had a great reputation for oratory and wit. He died in Oxfordshire, Sept. 4, 1767.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote up Sir Charles Townshend in 1921 while he was still alive and still, just about, a public figure; his surrender at Kut el Amara on 29 April 1916 is recorded flatly, with no verdict attached. Since then the verdict has hardened against him: some 13,000 troops went into Ottoman captivity, where thousands died on forced marches and in labour camps, while Townshend himself passed the war in comfortable internment on an island in the Sea of Marmara and made little effort on their behalf. His self-justifying memoir, published in 1920, damaged him further; he lost his parliamentary seat and died in 1924, and modern historians of the Mesopotamian campaign treat Kut as one of the worst-managed British operations of the war. The other Townshend, Charles the "weathercock" chancellor, needs no correction — his 1767 resolutions are still taught, under the name Townshend Acts, as a direct step toward the American Revolution.
Written for this edition, 2026.