Lord Townshend and Constant Residency

Abstract

Between the disastrous Harrington administration and the appointment of the new viceroy, Lord Townshend, the British government had considered and rejected a number of different schemes designed to improve control over Irish government. Grenville and Chatham had both made decisions on paper to introduce constant residency but the lack of suitable candidates for the post of viceroy, combined with ministerial instability, frustrated their designs. In August 1767, when Townshend was appointed, the political situation in Britain did not appear to be any more favourable. The ministry was shorn of Chatham’s leadership and Grafton was not a likely figure to introduce wide-ranging imperial reform. Yet it seems that the cabinet remained wedded to Chatham’s imperial policy, and it was also true that the decision taken in March 1765 to impose constant residency at the earliest opportunity, and the recent movements in that direction by Bristol and the Chatham ministry, had promoted a certain amount of expectation in both Britain and Ireland. Moreover, now at least a viceroy had been found who took his post seriously and had no objections to living in Ireland. It was partly the tenacity of Townshend, and his successor, Lord Harcourt, that allowed the British ministry to enjoy an unprecedented level of control over the Irish government during a period of heightened imperial crisis.