George Townshend, 7th Marquess Townshend

The Most Honourable The Marquess Townshend
Arms of Townshend: Azure, a chevron ermine between three escallops argent
Member of the House of Lords
In office 17 November 1921 – 11 November 1999 Hereditary Peerage
Personal details
Born	George John Patrick Dominic Townshend (1916-05-13)13 May 1916
Died	23 April 2010(2010-04-23) (aged 93)
Political party	Conservative
Spouses	Elizabeth Ludy ​ ​ (m. 1939; div. 1960)​ Ann Darlow ​ ​ (m. 1960; died 1988)​ Philippa Swire ​ (m. 2004)​
Children	5, including Charles Townshend, 8th Marquess Townshend
Parents	John Townshend, 6th Marquess Townshend Gwladys Sutherst
Education	Harrow School
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch/service	Territorial Army British Army
Years of service	1936–1945
Unit	Norfolk Yeomanry Scots Guards
Battles/wars	Second World War

George John Patrick Dominic Townshend, 7th Marquess Townshend (13 May 1916 – 23 April 2010), styled Viscount Raynham until 1921, was a British peer and businessman.

Background

Townshend was the only son of John Townshend, 6th Marquess Townshend, and Gwladys Ethel Gwendolen Eugenie Sutherst. His education was at Harrow School, where he contracted a near-fatal case of septicaemia caused by a cricket injury.

Having held his titles since the death of his father in 1921, as of 2 March 2009 Lord Townshend had held a peerage longer than any other peer in history, having passed the previous mark of 87 years, 104 days, held by Charles St Clair, 13th

Townshend sat as a Conservative, attending debates irregularly until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999.^[3]

Career

In 1936 he joined the

In 1958, Lord Townshend led the consortium

He was chairman of the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association and from 1951 to 1961, he was a Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk.

Family

Lord Townshend married, firstly, Elizabeth Pamela Audrey Luby (d. 1989),^[5] daughter of Lt.-Col. Thomas Luby, on 2 September 1939. They had three children:

• Lady Carolyn Elizabeth Ann Townshend (born 27 September 1940); she married Antonio Capellini on 13 October 1962 and they were divorced in 1971. They have one son. She remarried Edgar Bronfman in January 1973.
• Lady Joanna Agnes Townshend (born 19 August 1943); she married Jeremy Bradford, son of Commander George F.N. Bradford RN, on 27 September 1962 and they were divorced in 1968. They have one son. She remarried James Morrisey in 1978 and they were divorced in 1984. She married, lastly, Christian Boegnor in 1991.
• Charles Townshend, 8th Marquess Townshend
  (born 26 September 1945); he married Hermione Ponsonby on 9 October 1975. They have two children. He remarried Alison Combs on 6 December 1990.

After he and his first wife were divorced in 1960, Lord Townshend married, secondly, Ann Frances Darlow (d. 1988),^[5] daughter of Arthur Pellow Darlow, on 22 December 1960. They had two children.

• Lord John Townshend (born 17 June 1962); he married Rachel Chapple in 1987 and they were divorced in 1991. He remarried Helen Burt Chin in 1999. They had one son and one daughter. They divorced in 2010.
• Lady Katherine Townshend (born 29 September 1963); she married Piers W. Dent in April 1991 and were divorced. They have two children. She remarried Guy Bayley in 2001. They have two children.

Lord Townshend married, thirdly, in 2004, Philippa Sophia Swire (born 28 April 1935), former wife of Humphrey Roger Swire (1934–2004), and daughter of George Jardine Kidston-Montgomerie of Southannan. She is the mother of the Conservative MP Hugo Swire and Sophia Swire.

Lord Townshend died aged 93 on 23 April (

References

• Kidd, Charles; Williamson, David, eds. (1990).
  St Martin's Press. ^{[page needed}
  ]
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [
  better source needed
  ]
• Lundy, Darryl (10 June 2010). "Lady Katherine Ann Townshend". The Peerage.^{[unreliable source]} Allan Freer. "Conqueror 89" from The Conqueror database, in an older version.