Robert Townson

Dr Robert Townson MD FRSE LLD (1762 – 27 June 1827) was an English natural historian, traveller, mineralogist and doctor who emigrated to New South Wales in 1806.

Early life He was born at Richmond, Surrey, the youngest (and illegitimate) child of John Townson (1721–1773) and Sarah Aldcroft née Shewell (1731–1805). His father was a London merchant, his mother was from the Shewell business family, and she was married at the time of his birth to Charles Aldcroft, a haberdasher. His parents married in 1766, and John Townson died in 1774. From 1777 the Townson family were in Shropshire.

In 1793 Townson made a journey through parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. That year he made the first recorded ascents of Kriváň, a peak in the High Tatras now in Slovakia, of Lomnický štít and of Jahňací štít. In 1795 he graduated M.D. at Göttingen University.

Townson was living in Shropshire, at Lydley Hayes near Cardington, when in 1800 Arthur Aikin was seeking him out for assistance on mineralogy. The General View of Agriculture survey for the county edited by Joseph Plymley (also Corbett, surname changed in 1804) in 1803 contained material published by Townson. His sister Ann had married John Witts (1750–1816), who became vicar of Cardington in 1774. His brother John of the Royal Marines was in Australia, returning to England in 1800 for a visit. Townson went there, setting off from England at the end of 1806. He became one of the opponents of William Bligh in the Rum Rebellion, and received a land grant.

Townson succeeded in his farming and wine growing. In 1822 he was elected to the Agricultural Society of New South Wales He died on 27 June 1827, and was buried in Parramatta.

Works Townson published: It was published with a map supplement, by Johann Matthias Korabinsky (János Mátyás Korabinszky). The Philosophy of Mineralogy, London, 1798 Tracts and Observations in Natural History and Physiology, London, 1799. This work includes the discovery, claimed as original to Townsend, of how tortoises breathe, in the absence of a thoracic diaphragm.

He contributed a paper "Perceptivity of Plants" to the Transactions of the Linnean Society (ii. 267).