Norton Strange Townshend (December 25, 1815 – July 13, 1895) was a 19th Century American physician and politician who served on term as a United States representative from Ohio from 1851 to 1853.

Born in Clay Coton, Northamptonshire, England, in 1830 he migrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in Avon, Ohio.

He educated himself by the use of his father's library, taught a district school for a short time, and was graduated from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1840.

In 1854 and 1855, Townshend was a member of the Ohio Senate and during the American Civil War was a medical inspector of the Union Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel from 1863 to 1865.

[1] The Norton Strange Townshend Family Papers are located at the William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.