James Townsend (British politician)

James Townsend (baptised 8 February 1737 – 1 July 1787) was an English Whig politician and Lord Mayor of London in 1772–73.

In politics James Townsend was closely linked from the 1760s with the Whig grandee William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne.

[7] This created political turmoil in the City and a mob incensed by Townsend's coup rioted outside Guildhall during the ball on Lord Mayor's Day.

[13] At the age of sixteen, James Phipps entered the service of the Royal African Company (RAC) which traded slaves across the Atlantic between 1660 and 1752.

[14] At Cape Coast James Phipps married Catherine, the daughter of an African woman and a European soldier in the service of the Dutch West India Company.

In spite of being generously provided for in her husband's will,[15] Catherine Phipps refused to move to England and died at Cape Coast in 1738.

By means of his father's influence with Henry Fox, Townsend had the estate restored to him by private Act of Parliament.

Their son was the poet and writer Chauncy Hare Townshend (who spelt his surname thus) to whom Dickens dedicated Great Expectations.