George Townshend (Bahá'í)

George Townshend (1876–1957) was born in Ireland and was a well-known writer, clergyman before his conversion to the Bahá'í Faith in which he became a Hand of the Cause.

Townshend went to Oxford for a time, then returned to Ireland where he was a lead writer for The Irish Times from 1900 to 1904. In 1904 he emigrated to the U.S. and became ordained in Salt Lake City. He then went to Sewanee, Tennessee where he became Associate Professor of English at the University of the South.

Townshend spent many years near Ballinasloe, County Galway, where he was incumbent of Ahascragh and Archdeacon of Clonfert. Around this time he achieved recognition with "The Alter on the Hearth (1927)" and more widely with "The Genius of Ireland (1930)". He then moved to Dublin where he became the Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral. However, this lasted for only a short time before his resignation.

In 1918, Townshend started correspondence with Abdu'l-Bahá. He later became a Bahá'í and it was his activities in the Faith, including his writing of two books, “The Heart of the Gospel” and “The Promise of All Ages”, that created ever increasing tensions between Townshend and the other clergy and eventually caused Shoghi Effendi to call for his resignation as the Canon St. Patrick's Cathedral.

In 1947, at the age of 70, Townshend renounced his orders to the Anglican Church and wrote a pamphlet to all Christians under the title “The Old Churches and the New World Faith” that was sent out to 10,000 people in the British Isles on the occasion of this resignation. He then moved to a small bungalow outside of Dublin where he spent his last decade. Townshend was one of the founding members of the Dublin Local Spiritual Assembly and in 1951 was designated by Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, as a Hand of the Cause of God.

...
Wikipedia