portraits of horses, dogs, and cattle. Many of his pictures were small, but occasionally he ventured on compositions of landscapes with cattle introduced of larger size. There is a picture of Everton village by him in the Liverpool Corporation gallery. He also painted in watercolour, and was a candidate for admission to the Watercolour Society in 1809. His work, though carefully drawn, is wanting in spirit and originality.
[Bryan's Dict, of Artists (Graves); Mayer's Early Art in Liverpool; Manchester and Liverpool Art Exhibition Cat.]
TOWNE, FRANCIS (1740–1816), landscape-painter, was born in 1740, apparently in London. He studied under William Pars, and gained a prize at the Society of Arts in 1759. In 1762 he was a member of the Free Society of Artists. He exhibited drawings in watercolour at the Royal Academy in 1775, and in 1779 ‘View on the Exe’ and some others, his residence then being in Exeter. About this time he went to Italy, and exhibited views taken there and in Switzerland until 1794, but he seems to have been resident in London, where he died at his house in Devonshire Street on 7 July 1816. He exhibited in London twenty-seven works at the Royal Academy, sixteen at the Society of Artists, three at the Free Society, and ten at the British Institute. He enjoyed a considerable reputation as a landscape-painter.
[Bryan's Dict. of Artists (Graves); Graves's Dict. of Artists; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of English School; Gent. Mag. 1816; Royal Academy Cat.]
TOWNE, JOHN (1711?–1791), controversialist, born about 1711, was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1732 and M.A. in 1736. He became vicar of Thorpe-Ernald, Leicestershire, on 22 June 1740, archdeacon of Stowe in 1765, a prebendary of Lincoln, and rector of Little Paunton, Lincolnshire. He died on 15 March 1791 at Little Paunton, where he was buried, a mural tablet being erected to his memory in the church. Towne was a friend of Bishop Warburton, who held him in high esteem. By his wife Anne, who died on 31 Jan. 1754, he left three daughters and one son, who became a painter and died young.
His works are: 1. ‘A Critical Inquiry into the Opinions and Practice of the Ancient Philosophers, concerning the nature of the Soul and a Future State, and their method of teaching by the double doctrine. … With a Preface by the Author of the Divine Legation’ [William Warburton, bishop of Gloucester] (anon.), London, 1747, 8vo; 2nd edit. London, 1748, 8vo. 2. ‘The Argument of the Divine Legation [by Bishop Warburton], fairly stated and returned to the Deists, to whom it was originally addressed,’ London, 1751, 8vo. 3. ‘A Free and Candid Examination of the Principles advanced in the … Bishop of London's [i.e. Dr. Sherlock's] … Sermons, lately published; and in his … Discourses on Prophecy’ (anon.), London, 1756, 8vo. 4. ‘Dissertation on the Antient Mysteries,’ London, 1766. 5. ‘Remarks on Dr. Lowth's Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester [William Warburton]. With the Bishop's Appendix, and the second Epistolary Correspondence between his Lordship and the Doctor annexed’ (anon.), 2 pts. London, 1766, 8vo. 5. ‘Exposition of the Orthodox System of Civil Rights, and Church Power; addressed to Dr. Stebbing.’
[Gent. Mag. 1791, i. 286; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 283; Hurd's Life of Bishop Warburton, 1788, p. 134; Martin's Privately Printed Books, 2nd edit. p. 62; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 81; Nichols's Hist. of Leicestershire, ii. 371.]
TOWNE, JOSEPH (1808–1879), modeller, third son of Thomas Towne, a dissenting minister, was born at Royston, near Cambridge, on 25 Nov. 1808. As a child his great amusement was modelling animals in clay. His first work of any importance was the model of a human skeleton, measuring thirty-three inches in height, which now stands in the museum of Guy's Hospital. This he made secretly and by night when he was seventeen from such drawings and bones as could be found in a village. His father saw the work only when it was nearly complete, and then sent him to Cambridge with a letter of introduction to William Clark (1788–1869) [q. v.], the professor of anatomy. Towne was so favourably impressed with his reception at Cambridge that he determined to come to London. He arrived by coach at one of the old inns in Bishopgate Street in February 1826, and called, without introduction, upon Sir Astley Paston Cooper [q. v.], then the leading surgeon in London. Cooper, recognising the boy's capacity, gave him a letter to Benjamin Harrison (1771–1856) [q. v.], the great treasurer of Guy's Hospital, by whom he was immediately retained in the service of that charity. The skeleton which he had brought with him from Royston was offered in competition at the Society of Arts, where it obtained the second prize in 1826, but in the following year Towne executed some models of the brain in wax, which gained him the gold medal of the society. From 1826 until 1877 Towne occupied rooms
