Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/543

 which he frankly owned afterwards — in regard to the expedition of Lord Roberts. The peculiar quality of the 'Spectator' under the Townsend and Hutton régime was due to the fact that it was written mainly by two men of remarkable ability, whose equipments were supplementary to each other, and who devoted their entire energies to the paper. They enlisted, however, the occasional assistance of many able men, among them Walter Bagehot, Charles Henry Pearson, afterwards minister of education in Victoria, Sir Robert Giffen, Mr. H. H. Asquith, and Mr. W. F. Monypenny, the biographer of Lord Beaconsfield. Townsend's journalistic activity extended over a period of exactly sixty years, during which time he must have written close on 10,000 articles. Besides his work on the 'Spectator,' for many years he contributed the political article in the 'Economist.' In 1898 Townsend resigned his editorial control of the paper on its sale to Mr. St. Loe Strachey, who had been assistant-editor since 1886, but he continued to contribute to its columns with little abatement of his powers though in diminished volume for another ten years. His last article appeared in the issue of 16 May 1908, and bore the characteristic title 'The Unrest of Asia.' In 1909 his health failed rapidly, and after a long illness he died on 21 Oct. 1911 at the Manor House, Little Bookham, in Surrey. He had removed thither in 1899 from the house in Harley Street which he had occupied since 1864. He was buried in Little Bookham churchyard.

Townsend was married thrice: (1) in 1853, to his cousin. Miss Colchester, who died in the same year; (2) in 1857, to Isabel Collingwood, who died shortly after the birth of a son in 1858; and (3) shortly after his final return to England, in January 1861, to Ellen Frances, daughter of John Francis Snell of Wentford House, Clare, Suffolk; she survived him with her three children, a son and two daughters. Townsend wrote Uttle except for the press. But he collaborated with his friend John Langton Sanford [q. v.] in 'The Great Governing Families of England' (2 vols. 1865), which gives in a condensed but animated form 'the leading ascertained facts in the history of our great families.' In August 1901 he republished a number of articles contributed to various reviews besides the 'Spectator' under the title ’Asia and Europe.' The volume, which contains an interesting study of Mahomet, is somewhat pessimistic in tone. Townsend expresses the view that the Indian peoples will almost certainly become Mohammedan, and the general drift of his conclusions is summed up in the sentence 'The fusion of the continents has never occurred, and in the author's best judgment will never occur.' His only non-political essay out-side the 'Spectator' was an appreciative study in the 'Cornhill' of the novels of Mrs. Oliphant, whom he attached to the 'Spectator,' and who for some time wrote for it 'A Commentary from an Easy Chair.'

Townsend went little into society, and never belonged to a club, but received his friends regularly at Harley Street on Mondays. In private life he was remarkable for his genial old-fashioned courtesy and brilliant paradoxical talk. He was generous beyond ordinary experience; no master of his craft was kinder or more helpful to the raw apprentice.

 TRACEY, RICHARD EDWARD (1837–1907), admiral, son of Commander Tracey of the royal navy, was born on 24 Jan. 1837, and entered the navy in 1852. He served during the Baltic campaign of 1854 as a midshipman of the Boscawen, and received the medal; he passed his examination in Jan. 1858 while serving in the Harrier, sloop, on the south-east coast of America, and was promoted to lieutenant on 28 June 1859. After studying on board the Excellent he was appointed in July 1860 to the Conqueror in the Channel squadron, and two years later received a supernumerary appointment to the Euryalus, flagship of Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper [q. v.] on the East Indies and China station. While in her he took part in the active operations in Japan, especially the engagement with the forts at Kagosima in Aug. 1863, and the attack on the batteries in the Straits of Simonoseki in Sept. 1864. For these services he was mentioned in despatches, and on 21 Nov. 1864 was promoted to commander. The Japanese government under the Tokugawa Shogurata having asked that English naval officers might be lent for training purposes to their newly formed modern navy, the request was granted and Tracey placed in charge of the mission. He and his companions set about organising and superintending the naval school at Tsukiji during 1867-8, 