His education was at Harrow School, where he contracted a near-fatal case of septicaemia caused by a cricket injury.

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

[2] In 1936 he joined the Norfolk Yeomanry, later transferring to the Scots Guards and serving in World War II.

Lord Townshend died aged 93 on 23 April (St George's Day) 2010, having held his peerage for 89 years.

At the time, the longest known holder of a peerage, having passed the record which was surpassed by John Dodson, 3rd Baron Monk Bretton in January 2021, in March 2009, of 87 years and 104 days set by the 13th Lord Sinclair in 1863.