William Richard Townsend

Townsend was appointed as Attorney General of the Gambia on 1 May 1902, the first in the colony's history.^[1] He was appointed to the Executive and Legislative Councils of the Gambia on 26 September 1902.^[2] He was appointed as Chief Magistrate of the Gambia on 18 January 1907, and as a judge in Sierra Leone on 22 October 1908. He was appointed as a circuit judge but also a puisne judge on its Supreme Court.^[3][4] He was appointed as the Attorney General of the Gold Coast on 16 November 1912.^[5]

Townsend married Emily Mabel Townshend in 1907. She was the daughter of Richard Horatio Townshend and Frances Maria Maunsell.^[6] He died in 1914, killed at sea.