From a noted nonconformist background, he associated with campaigners against religious restriction, and was one of the founders of the bank Langston, Polhill, Towgood and Amory and the dissenting academy New College, Hackney.
[9] The Clement's Lane banker Samuel Amory (died 1799) was grandfather of Sir John Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Baronet.
[11] In London politics he was a supporter of John Wilkes and James Townsend, and signed the pro-American petition of 1775.
Towgood was on the committee, with Samuel Heywood, Richard Price, Thomas Rogers, Benjamin Vaughan and Hugh Worthington;[15] Rogers, Towgood and Michael Dodson acted as treasurers in the early days to the "New Institution", as the college was initially known.
[16] Towgood attended a dinner on 1 July 1786 given in Clapham by William Smith for John Adams, with two of his sons; other guests there also of the Repeal Committee were Andrew Kippis and Joseph Paice.
[20] Towgood married Mary Mills on 23 June 1752 at the Church of St John the Baptist, Bristol.