Meredith White Townsend (1831–1911) was an English journalist and editor of The Spectator. With Richard Holt Hutton, he was joint-editor of the Spectator until 1887, and he was largely instrumental in making it an established success, writing most of the political articles and the opening paragraphs every week. His two chief publications were The Great Governing Families of England (1865), written in conjunction with Langton Sanford, and Asia and Europe (1901).
Townsend was considered as one of the finest journalists of his day, and he has since been called "the greatest leader writer ever to appear in the English Press."[1]