Lady Juliet Margaret Townsend, DCVO (née Smith; 9 September 1941 – 29 November 2014) was a British writer who served as Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire from 1998 to 2014, the first woman to hold this position.
[2][4] Margaret had requested that the appointed person be equipped to help supplement her perceived lack of a formal education.
[5] Townsend wrote a book recording "every village, church, stately home and architectural curiosity" within Northamptonshire, publishing it in 1968.
[3] She held an almost forty-year membership in the Northamptonshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and served as its president from 1988 to 1998.
[6] She left the position after her appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire, the first woman to hold this role.