Chauncy Townshend

Chauncy Hare Townshend, whose surname was spelt by his parents as Townsend, 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 and the Wisbech & Fenland Museum in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. He added an 'h' to his surname in 1835, upon inheriting; his first name was often spelled "Chauncey".