Background
Thomas Townshend was born on 24 February 1733, the first Viscount Sydney, was the only son of Thomas Townshend by his wife Albinia.
Thomas Townshend was born on 24 February 1733, the first Viscount Sydney, was the only son of Thomas Townshend by his wife Albinia.
He was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, where in 1753 he graduated with an M.A.
He was elected M.P. for Whitchurch, Hampshire, in 1754, and represented that borough until his elevation to the peerage in 1783.
He was a supporter of William Pitt (the Elder), Earl of Chatham, who appointed him to a minor post in 1760. However, he was dismissed two years later, as his conduct did not satisfy the “king’s friends.” In 1765 he was appointed Treasury lord in the ministry of the second Marquess of Rockingham. In 1767 he became joint paymaster and a privy councillor, but resigned from the position of joint paymaster in 1768 rather than be transferred to another post to make way for an appointee of the Duke of Grafton. He opposed the unseating of Wilkes from the House of Commons in 1769, and declined to become speaker of the House of Commons in 1770, remaining in opposition to Lord North and his friends.
In March 1782, Townshend was returned to office as secretary at war, responsible for presenting army and naval estimates to the House of Commons, in the ministry of the Marquess of Rockingham. On the death of Rockingham four months later, he sided with the Earl of Shelburne (rather than Charles James Fox), whom he succeeded as home secretary (July 1782-April 1783) when the other became prime minister.
He was created Baron Sydney the following month, in March 1783, and became secretary of the Home Department again, this time under William Pitt, the Younger, on 23 December, remaining in that post until June 1789. This appointment was, perhaps, predictable, since his second daughter had married John Pitt (the brother of William Pitt, the Elder, and uncle of William Pitt, the Younger, who became the second Earl of Chatham) in 1783.
Though Sydney’s subsequent career in the House of Lords was unspectacular, he is remembered as having been instrumental in setting up a new convict colony in New South Wales, Australia, to take the place of those lost to American independence. The town founded in 1788 at Port Jackson was named Sydney in his honor. On his resignation from office following a disagreement with Pitt in 1789, he was created Viscount Sydney and awarded a pension of £2,500 a year. He died on 30 June 1800.
He married Elizabeth Powys.