Walter Beaupré Townley

Sir Walter Beaupré Townley KCMG (8 January 1863 – 5 April 1945) was a British diplomat, who most notably served as the British Ambassador to the Netherlands during the final years of the First World War.

Townley (of the Townley of Dutton family) was educated at Eton College. He entered the Foreign Office in 1885 and served at Paris, Teheran, Bucharest, Lisbon, Berlin, Rome, Peking, Constantinople and Washington, D.C. He was Minister to Argentina and concurrently to Paraguay 1906–10, Minister to Romania 1911–12, Minister to Persia 1912–15 and Minister to the Netherlands 1917–1919. During his time in the Netherlands he had to engage in long negotiations on the fate of the exiled German Emperor, who arrived in November 1918. In Townley's obituary The Times said:

Townley resigned in January 1919 but was asked to stay on until August of that year. After retiring he was chairman of the Anglo-Batavian Society.

Townley was knighted KCMG in the 1911 Coronation Honours.