Townshend family, Marquesses Townshend

The Townshend family was settled at East Raynham (Norfolk) by the late 14th century, and greatly extended its estates around Raynham in the 16th century. Out-county properties were also acquired, including Wivenhoe (Essex), purchased from the Earl of Oxford in 1584 but sold during the 17th century. Sir John Townshend (1568-1603) married Anne, daughter and co-heir of Sir Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey (Norfolk) (c1546-1622). Their son Sir Roger Townshend (d. 1637) married Mary, daughter and co-heir of Lord Vere of Tilbury (a grandson of the 15th Earl of Oxford), and built Raynham Hall. Their son Horatio married Mary, daughter and heir of Sir Edward Lewkenor, through whom the Denham (Suffolk) estate (sold in 1803) was inherited, and was created Baron Townshend in 1661 and Viscount Townshend in 1682.

The 2nd Viscount (d. 1738), statesman and agriculturist, married firstly (in 1698) Elizabeth Pelham, whose mother was a co-heir of the Jones family of Ramsbury (Wiltshire), and secondly (in 1713), Dorothy (1686-1726), sister of Sir Robert Walpole, of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, 1st Earl of Orford. The 3rd Viscount (1700-64) married Audrey, daughter and heir of Edward Harrison, through whom the Townshends obtained the Balls Park (Hertfordshire) estate (sold 1901) and the Soham and Fordham (Cambridgeshire) estate (sold c1806).

The 1st Marquess Townshend (1724-1807, so created 1787), Field Marshal and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, married in 1751 Charlotte Compton, Baroness Ferrers in her own right (d. 1770), only daughter of James Compton, 5th Earl of Northampton, and through her mother heiress of the Ferrers family of Tamworth Castle (Warwickshire), with estates in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire (see Compton, Marquesses of Northampton; Shirley, Earls Ferrers). These estates, which included Walton-upon-Trent (Derbyshire), a secondary seat of the Ferrers family, and further Derbyshire properties inherited through the Bradbourne family in the late 16th century, were mostly sold in the early 19th century, although Tamworth Castle itself was bought back and remained in the family until 1897.

There were extensive sales from Raynham Hall in the early 20th century, and manuscripts were widely dispersed at auction in 1911 and 1924. A quantity of papers appears to have left Tamworth Castle in the early 19th century, passing into the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps.

Estates in 1883: Norfolk 18,343 acres, Herts 1,565 acres, Warwicks 2 acres, total 19,910 acres worth £22,560 a year, exclusive of tithes and shooting rents worth c £1,000.