Chauncy Hare Townshend

Chauncy Hare Townshend, whose surname was spelt by his parents as Townsend (20 April 1798, Godalming, Surrey – 25 February 1868), was a 19th-century English poet, clergyman, mesmerist, collector, dilettante and hypochondriac. He is mostly remembered for bequeathing his collections to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) and the Wisbech & Fenland Museum in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.^[1] He added an 'h' to his surname in 1835, upon inheriting; his first name was often spelled "Chauncey".