Whig statesman who directed British foreign policy from 1721 to 1730.

He succeeded his father, Horatio Townshend, as viscount in 1687, and in 1714 King George I appointed him a secretary of state. The temperamental Townshend soon came into conflict with his colleague James Stanhope over Stanhope's pro-French foreign policy and as a consequence was demoted in December 1716 to lord lieutenant of Ireland. He and his brother-in-law Robert Walpole (later earl of Orford) then formed an effective opposition movement within the Whig Party.

After the two Whig factions were reconciled in 1720, Townshend became president of the Privy Council and (in 1721) secretary of state. By 1724 he and Walpole were the leading figures in the ministry. Townshend's major diplomatic achievement was the formation of the League of Hanover (1725), which brought England, France, and Prussia into an alliance against Austria and Spain. Nevertheless, in 1730 Townshend resigned because Walpole—by now the dominant minister—would not allow him to pursue an aggressive policy against Austria.

Townshend earned his nickname “Turnip Townshend” for his contribution to the development of the use of turnips in crop rotation.