John Townesend (1648–1728)
Mayor of Oxford 1720/1
John Townesend (occasionally Townsend) was born in 1648. He was apparently the son of a labourer called Thomas Townesend He is not obviously related to the mercer John Townsend (born 1623) who was Mayor of Oxford in 1669 and 1682.
John was apprenticed to the Oxford stonemason Bartholomew Peisley.
On 29 September 1672 at St Giles’s Church, Oxford, John Townesend married Elizabeth Morrell [recorded as Morall], with both described as being of that parish. They had the following children:
- Katherine/Catherine Townesend (born in Oxford and baptised at St Giles' Church on 20 December 1674)
- William Townesend (born in Oxford and baptised at St Giles' Church on 17 December 1676)
- John Townesend junior (born in Oxford and baptised at St Giles' Church on 12 December 1678)
- George Townesend (born in Oxford and baptised at St Giles' Church on 17 January 1680/1).
On 2 October 1674 when he was aged about 26, John Townesend was admitted free, describing himself as a stonemason.
In 1693 he took on his eldest son William Townesend as his apprentice.
In 1698 John Townesend carved this stone hood over the door of the Principal's Lodgings at Jesus College, Oxford:
On 2 July 1699 at St Giles's Church, Oxford his daughter Catherine Townesend married Jeremiah Franklin of Oxford.
In September 1699 “Mr. John Townesend, senior, mason” (already aged over 50) was chosen to be one of the 24 members of the common council.
In 1702/3 John Townesend and his eldest son William (now 26) were working together at Exeter College in Oxford, but soon afterwards it appears that John concentrated on commissions outside Oxford while his son William undertook work for the colleges and the University.
John Townesend took on three more apprentice masons William King (1704), John Osborne (1706), and Daniel Boodan (1713).
His wife Elizabeth Townesend was buried in St Giles’s churchyard on 11 March 1706/7.
From 1706 to 1711 John Townesend worked at Blenheim Palace, where Townsend's Tower is named after him. In 1707–8 the north Compton Beauchamp House in Berkshire was built under his direction, with his son-in-law Jeremiah Franklin doing the carpentry.
Townesend was selected City Chamberlain in September 1709 when he was over 60. He was elected Junior Bailiff in September 1711 for the forthcoming council year, and was appointed a keykeeper and inspector of nuisances in September 1714.
On 6 February 1716 his apprentice John Osborn was admitted free.
In September 1719, at the age of 71, John Townesend was elected one of the Mayor’s eight Assistants, and in September 1720 Mayor (for 1720/1), choosing Edward Law as his Child. Thomas Hearne wrote of the occasion:
Yesterday Mr Townesend, the mason, father to [William] Townesend who hath a hand in all the buildings in Oxford and gets a vast deal of money that way, was elected Mayor of Oxford. This old Townesend is commonly called “Old Pincher” from his pinching his workmen.
Hearne described the customary breakfast Townesend gave at the end of his year of office as being “so splendid that the like hath not been known many years”.
John Townesend died at the age of 79 on 23 May 1728 and was buried in St Giles’s churchyard (south side) two days later. His son William designed this monument that stands over the family grave:
The only properly legible part of the front (north) side monument is at the end:
MIGRAVIT DIE MAII XXIII, ANNO SALUTIS MDCCXXVIII AETATIS LXXX
[He passed away on 23 May in the year of our salvation 1728 and in the 80th year of his age]
The above detail on the south side reads:
HOC MONUMENTUM / PIETATE ?EREXIT / GULIELMUS TOWNESEND FILIUS NATU MAXIMUS
[William Townesend his eldest son erected this monument out of piety]
Apparently the monument also has the inscription “IN ARCHITECTONICA MAGISTER PERITISSIMUS EXACTIS DEMUM PLURIBUS ET AD SCIENTIAM ET AD UNIVERSITATIS HUJUSCE ORNAMENTUM AEDIFICIIS” [“a most skilful master of architecture who had carried out many buildings both for the advancement of knowledge and the adornment of this University”].
- Geoffrey Tyack, “The restored tomb of John Townesend at St Giles's Church, Oxford”,
Oxoniensia LXXII (2008) (Oxford Architectural & Historical Society, 2009)
After leaving various legacies to his son John Townesend junior and the latter's four surviving children, to his daughter Catherine Franklin and her husband Jeremiah, to his two daughters-in-law Mary (wife of George) and Elizabeth (wife of John), and to the three surviving children of his son William (John, Elizabeth, and Mary Townesend), plus his goddaughters Elizabeth and Catherine Sanderson, he left everything to his eldest son William Townesend (see below).
John Townesend's last apprentice Daniel Booden was admitted free on 13 September 1728, nearly four months after the death of his master.
Some of John Townesend’s descendants
All three of John Townesend's sons became masons:
William Townesend (1676–1739) remained in Oxford and was the most successful and famous
John Townesend junior (1678–1742) practised in London
George Townesend (1681–1719) practised in the Bristol area
William Townesend (1676–1739), eldest son of the Mayor
For more information, see the entry for William Townesend in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
and H. M. Colvin, “The Townesends of Oxford”, The Georgian Group Journal, 10 (2000), 43–60
William Townesend, the son of John & Elizabeth Townesend, was born near the end of 1676 and was apprenticed to his father.
He worked on the Radcliffe Camera, Convocation House, the Botanical Garden, the Clarendon Building, the Fellows' Building at Corpus Christi College, and the Peckwater quadrangle at Christ Church, and also did work at at Magdalen, Oriel, All Souls, St John’s, University, Trinity, Worcester, and New College, sometimes working in partnership with Bartholomew Peisley junior, the son of the stonemason to whom his father had been apprenticed. He also worked at Radley Hall and Blenheim Palace. He also had architectural skills.
Thomas Hearne expressed surprise that although the Mayor of Oxford John Townesend was so against the University, his son William was employed “in all the Buildings in the University, tho’ ’tis well known he hath spoil’d most, if not all, the Buildings he hath been employ’d in”. William was also a sculptor, and carved busts in St Mary-the-Virgin Church and Christ Church Cathedral.
William Townesend must have married his wife Mary in about 1703, so they are likely to be the “William Townsend & Mary Coxhead of this City of Oxford” who were married at St Cross Church on 13 December 1703, in which case his wife was probably the Marie Coxhead who was baptised at St Mary-the-Virgin Church on 8 August 1680.
William and Mary Townesend had six children baptised as follows at St Michael's Church in Oxford, with the three in italic dying in infancy:
Mary Townesend (born 11 November 1704, bap. same day, buried in church 20 August 1710)
Elizabeth Townesend (born 6 January 1705/6, bap. 8 January, buried in church 21 August 1735)
Sarah Townesend (born 1 April 1707, bap. 14 April, buried in church 6 April 1710)
John Townesend (born 15 December 1709, bap. 22 December)
A second Mary Townesend (born 27 August 1712, bap. 29 August)
William (bap. 2 August 1715, buried in church 11 July 1716).When his father died in 1728 William took over his business, including the contract for the masonry of the Radcliffe Library.
William's wife Mary Townesend died at the age of 47 and was buried on 3 September 1729 inside St Michael's Church, described in the register as the wife of Mr William Townesend, stone cutter.
William Townesend died in September 1739 and was buried in St Giles's churchyard with his father.
His PCC will is available from the National Archives: he left the Anchor & Wheatsheaf in St Aldate's to his daughter Mary (who had married the future Mayor of Oxford William Ives) and two houses leased from Oxford city (the one where he lived and the one occupied by Mrs Chapman) to his daughter-in law Elizabeth Townesend (the wife of his son John). Everything else went to his son John Townsend (see below), who took over the family business.
John Townesend II (1709–1746), grandson of the Mayor
John Townesend, the only surviving son of the master mason William Townesend and his wife Mary, was born in Oxford on 15 December 1709 and baptised at St Michael's Church a week later.
When his father died in 1739 John Townesend took over his business, He was mason to Christ Church and worked on the Radcliffe Library and St John’s and Corpus Christi Colleges.
On 31 May 1734 at Wootton Church in Oxfordshire, John Townesend II of St Michael's parish in Oxford married Elizabeth Sutton of Woodstock, and their marriage settlement relating to Chaucer's House in New Woodstock, two messuages in St Michael's parish, Oxford, and a messuage and nine acres in Gelston, Lincolnshire is held by the Berkshire Record Office: D/ESv/M/F136.
John and Elizabeth had seven children baptised at St Michael's Church four of whom died in infancy:
Mary Townesend (bap. 18 April 1735)
William Townesend (bap. 28 June 1737)
Elizabeth Townesend (bap. 6 August 1738, buried 27 June 1840 in the church)
A second Elizabeth Townesend (bap 30 June 1741)
John Townesend (bap. 11 October 1742, buried 26 October 1742 in the church)
A second John Townesend (bap. 17 December 1743, buried 18 June 1744 in the church)
Sarah Townesend (bap. 29 October 1745, buried 9 March 1746/7 in the church).John Townesend died in August 1746 and was described as being of St Michael's parish when he was buried in St Giles' churchyard on 20 August. His four surviving children Mary, William, Elizabeth, and Sarah were all aged under twelve when he died. (Baby Sarah, however, died just seven months after her father, and only three survived to adulthood.)
His PCC will is available from the National Archives: he left his freehold estate and farm to his wife Elizabeth and £100 to each of his three young daughters. His two messuages in St Michael's parish were to pass from his wife to his son William on her death. He added that it was his "Inclination that my Son [John] should be brought up in my own Trade and Profession”, and he duly left him all his books, statues, and mathematical instruments.
John Townesend II's daughter Mary Townesend married the Revd Thomas Stevens at St Ebbe's Church on 14 January 1766. She was described as being of that parish and her husband was of Bradfield Berkshire. Mary's brother William conducted the marriage.
Despite John Townesend II's hope on his deathbed in 1746 that his only surviving son William Townesend would follow in his profession, he was matriculated at the University of Oxford by Trinity College on 2 May 1753 at the age of 15, obtaining his BA in 1757. He was first employed as Fellow and Bursar of Trinity College, and was then ordained Deacon on 4 October 1761 and obtained his BD in 1773. He became Rector of Rotherfield Greys in 1782, and died there on 3 February 1785, with his death announced in the London Magazine.
John Townesend III (d. 1784), probably another grandson of the Mayor
David Sturdy in A History of Knowles & Son (1997) suggests that the successor to the family business, John Townesend III, could have been the cousin of John Townsend II and the son of William Townesend's London-based brother John Townesend. This would mean that he was also the grandson of the Mayor of Oxford John Townesend.
John Townesend III completed the work on the Radcliffe Camera in 1749, built the old Oxford Town Hall (1752), worked at The Queen’s and Exeter Colleges, and rebuilt in stone the fan vault over Convocation House in 1758/9.
John Townesend III and his wife Mary had six children baptised at St Michael's Church in Oxford:
Stephen Townesend (bap. 23 September 1755): see below
Mary Townesend (bap. 5 December 1757)
Susanna Townesend ( bap. 15 October 1759)
Ann Townesend (bap. 19 October 1761)
Charlotte Townesend (born 15 October 1763, bap 18 October)
Parthenia Townesend (born 14 November 1765, bap. 15 December)On 27 February 1768 Jackson's Oxford Journal referred to “Mr. Townesend, Mason and Carver, on Magdalen Bridge, Oxford” (presumably one of the houses that stood on the bridge before it was rebuilt in 1773). He was described as “an eminent builder” in Oxford in the short report in that newspaper on 22 August 1773 stating that he was building a new stone bridge in Maidenhead.
John Townesend III bought the lease of 58 & 59 High Street on the corner of the High Street and Longwall Street in 1771, and in 1772 the Commissioners commanded that those premises should be pulled down, and the house was rebuilt.
On 5 October 1777 at St Peter-in-the-East Church, his daughter Mary Townesend married John Shury, and the newspaper announcement on 11 October 1777 again described Mary's father as “an eminent builder”.
This third John Townesend retired to Court Place Iffley. He died on 4 September 1784, and was buried four days later in St Peter-in-the-East churchyard. His death announcement in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 11 September 1784 read:
On Saturday last died, Mr. John Townesend, an eminent Builder of this City, of great Skill as well as Experience in his Profession; by whose Death his family have lost an affectionate Husband and tender Father, and the Community an honest Man.
He left his business to his only son Stephen Townesend.
His wife Mary Townesend was buried with him on 5 August 1792.
His two youngest daughters never married. Charlotte Townesend died at the age of 46 and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter-in-the-East on 29 May 1811. and Parthenia Townesend died in St Clement's at the age of 61 and was buried with her sister on 6 February 1827. They are described on their gravestone as “daughters of Mr John Townesend, architect of this city”.
John's great-grandson Stephen Townesend (1755–1800)
Stephen Townesend was born in Oxford in 1755, apparently the only son of John & Mary Townesend, and was baptised at St Michael's Church there on 23 September.
He was described as an eminent builder of Oxford when he married his first wife Mary Grantham in the Strand, London on 10 February 1782. She died less than two years later, and when she was buried at St Helen's churchyard in Benson, Oxfordshire on 30 January 1784 she was described in the parish register as being of Oxford .
When his father died in 1784, Stephen Townesend inherited the family business. In 1784–6 he together with John Churchill of Woodstock built a new tower for Woodstock Church.
On 30 March 1785 at Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire, Stephen Townesend, described as a widower of that parish, married his second wife Ann Batten of the parish of St Peter-in-the-East in Oxford, where they settled. As Stephen was not a freeman, in order to be allowed to work in the city he was matriculated at the University as a “lapidarius” on 13 May 1785.
Stephen and Ann lived in “extensive premises pleasantly situated at the Bottom of the High Street in Oxford” (the rebuilt 58 High Street), and they had four children, the first three baptised at St Peter-in-the-East Church:
Elizabeth Townesend (bap. 3 February 1786)
John Townesend (bap. 31 May 1787)
Stephen Townesend (bap. 17 January 1789)
Henry Townesend (born at Iffley in 1800 and received into the Congregation at Iffley Church on 2 August 1801): sometimes Henry William Townesend.In 1794 Stephen Townesend purchased the rectorial estate at Iffley from John Brooke of Cardiganshire, and leased the rest to Benjamin Churchill of Woodstock the same year. In 1797 Stephen sold the family business to his foreman Thomas Knowles, who founded the Knowles building firm which survived until 2017, and appears to have taken up farming. On1 April 1799 the city granted him a licence to alienate his home in St Peter-in-the-East parish to the Oxford builder John Hudson, and he retired with his family to the Vicarage House in Iffley.
Stephen Townesend died at the Vicarage House in Iffley at the age of 45 in 1800 when his eldest child was only 14 and was buried at St Peter-in-the-East Church on 10 October. He was described in the Monthly Magazine for that year as being “late an eminent builder at Oxford”.
His PCC will is available from the National Archives. He left Wood Farm in Headington which he held under Magdalen College to his brother John Townesend (who is duly listed as holding it in the Headington Enclosure Award of 1804). He directed that the rest of his estate should be sold and the money to be divided equally among his wife Ann and his children Elizabeth, John, Stephen, and Henry.
It was reported in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 14 March 1801 that the public could be constantly supplied with stone from the stone quarries at Headington, late the Property of Stephen Townesend by applying to John Townesend of Oxford or Richard Taylor at the Quarries.
On 31 October 1801 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised the forthcoming auction of the Vicarage House at Iffley, late in the Occupation of STEPHEN TOWNESEND, Esq. deceased” and on 26 December 1801 another auction of all his household furniture and other effects on the premises at the Vicarage House, Iffley.
Stephen Townsend's eldest son had followed him in the building trade, but died less than six years after his father a year before he came of age. His two other sons turned to the army and farming:
His eldest son John Townesend (b. 1787) died in 1807 at the age of 20 and was buried at St Peter-in-the-East churchyard on 4 September that year: he was described in the burial register as a builder.
His second son Stephen Townesend (b. 1789) never married. At the time of the 1841 census when he was aged 51 he was living at Primrose Hill in Woodstock with his occupation given as “army”. In 1851 he was aged 61 and living in Marylebone and was described as a Lieutenant Colonel East India Company servant on half pay. He still lived in Marylebone in 1861, and then described himself as a retired estate agent.
His youngest son Henry Townesend (b. 1800/1) was still a bachelor in 1841, and was living on his own in Tackley, Oxfordshire. He described himself as a farmer and his father Stephen as a builder when he married Mary Reed, a schoolmistress of Brewer Street, at Holy Trinity Church in St Ebbe's, Oxford on 6 October 1846, and their daughter Ann Elizabeth Mary Townesend was baptised there on 15 March 1848. At the time of the 1851 census Henry (50) described himself as a farmer of 80 acres employing two labourers and he and his wife Mary and their daughter Ann (3). were living at his mother's house, the Manor House in Tackley.
His only daughter Elizabeth Townesend (b. 1786) married the solicitor John Venfield Harrison of Woodstock on 22 December 1810 at St Peter-in-the-East Church, Oxford and they had four children baptised at Woodstock: Batten Harrison (5 October 1814), John Harrison (22 January 1817), Matilda Ann Harrison (25 October 1820), and Laura Maria Harrison on (2 December 1818).
Widow of Stephen Townesend:
In 1851 Ann Townsend (87) described herself as a retired farmer and was the head of the household at the Manor House at Tackley. She died at Tackley at the age of 93 in 1858 and was buried there on 18 January. Her effects came to under £200.
See also:
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entries numbered 339, 432, and 804 for the three apprentices taken on by John Townesend
- H. M. Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British architects, s.v. Townesend
- Townesend Papers 1687–1804 in Bodleian Archives: John Townesend 1687–1727; William Townesend 1702–1729; John Townesend II 1737–1745; William Townesend (Bursar of Trinity College) 1772–1778; William Ives 1722–1765; Mary Ives 1759–1785; and Thomas Stevens & his wife Mary Townesend 1779–1804
plus Bodleian Library blog, “The masons who rebuilt Oxford” - Berkshire Record Office: Papers of the Stevens family of Bradfield:
Part I (including the Revd Thomas Stevens, who married Mary Townesend )
Part II (Papers of Mrs Mary Stevens's grandfather William Townesend relating to his work at Blenheim Palace) - David Sturdy, A History of Knowles & Son (British Archaeological Reports, British series 254, Oxford, 1997)
