Townson, Thomas, Dd

Townson, Thomas, D.D.

an English clergyman was born at Much Lees, in Essex, in 1715. He was educated at Oxford, where he took his degree of A.M. in 1739; was ordained priest in 1742; became vicar of Hatfield Peverel in 1746; senior proctor of the university: and rector of Blithfield, Staffordshire, in 1749; and rector of Malpas in 1751, where the rest of his life was spent; In 1781 he was made archdeacon of Richmond, and in 1783 was offered the professorship of divinity at Oxford, which he declined. He died April 15, 1792. His most important works are: his Discourses on the Four Gospels, chiefly with regard to the Peculiar Designs of Each, and the Order and Places in which they were Written, published in 1778, which has passed through three editions; and his Discourse on the Evangelical History from the Interment to the Resurrection of our Lord (1792); His collected works were issued in 2 vols. 8vo (Land. 1810), edited by Ralph Churton, A.M. See Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, s.v.; Kitto, Cyclop. s.v.; Chalmers, Biog. Dict. s.v.