Isabella Frances Townshend

Isabella Frances Townshend was an Anglo-Irish artist, and one of the first five students at Hitchin College (present-day Girton College, Cambridge).

Early life Isabella Frances Vere Townshend was born on 1 November 1847 in Rosscarbery, County Cork to Rev Chambré Corker Townshend and Eliza Wilmot Townshend . Her father died in 1852.

In 1869, Townshend was one of five women to enrol at Hitchin College. possibly of typhoid that she contracted in Italy.

Through her brother Chambré Corker Townshend, she was the sister-in-law of Emily Townshend, a social reformer, suffragette and fellow-student at Hitchin College, and the aunt of the artist Caroline Townshend.

In her memoir, Emily Townshend recalls that Townshend "had a great influence on my views of life and on my life altogether. She was about a year older that myself, small and plain. She had considerable ability, indeed, many of us gave her credit for a touch of genius, yet she never accomplished much definite work of any kind."