He was the second son of William Townsend of Walton, Lancashire, and matriculated at The Queen's College, Oxford, on 4 July 1820, graduating B.A. in 1824 and M.A. in 1827. On 25 November 1828 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn.^[1]

Townsend first attached himself to the northern circuit, and then practised at the Cheshire and Manchester assizes. Later he obtained a practice on the North Wales circuit. In 1833 he was elected recorder of Macclesfield. In March 1850 he was appointed a queen's counsel, and in the same year became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. He died shortly, on 8 May at Burntwood Lodge, Wandsworth Common, the house of his elder brother Richard Lateward Townsend, vicar of All Saints', Wandsworth, Surrey. He was buried in the vaults of Lincoln's Inn.^[1]

Townsend wrote:^[1]

• The Pæan of Orford, a poem, London, 1826.
• The History and Memoirs of the House of Commons, London, 1843–4.
• The Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges of the Last and of the Present Century, London, 1846.
• Modern State Trials revised and illustrated, London, 1850.

He also contributed poems to Henry Fisher's Imperial Magazine, around 1820.^[1]

In 1834 Townsend married Frances, second daughter of Richard Wood of Macclesfield, who survived him; he died without issue.^[1]

Attribution

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Townsend, William Charles". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co.