Mary Townsend

Mary Elizabeth Townsend (23 July 1841 - 14 June 1918) was a British philanthropist and co-founder of the Girls' Friendly Society. Early life Mary Elizabeth Butler was born in Kilkenny, then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, into a family embedded in the Church of Ireland (i.e. not the Catholic Church). Her father Robert Butler was vicar of St John's Church in that city and chaplain to the Earl of Ormond. Her mother was Grace Hamilton, daughter of another minister, James Hamilton of Trim, County Meath. James ran a school, and took in and educated his nephew, Grace's cousin, and Mary's first cousin once removed, William Rowan Hamilton. William was a mathematical prodigy, who eventually became Royal Astronomer of Ireland. Mary's parents died when she was a young child and she was raised in England by her father's sisters. Early philanthropy Aged 21, she married an artist and botanist almost twice her age, Frederick Townsend (1823–1905), also of a clergy family. It was a happy and productive partnership; she put herself in his hands and was glad, as she put it, "to grow and develop under his care". They lived at first at Shedfield Lodge near Wickham, Hampshire. (The building is now a care home.) Both husband and wife worked at improving life for the people of the estate. Mary Townsend concentrated her efforts on the education of girls, the orphanage for girls, and the care of the ill and the old.