Episode 1 of 3

Townshend's Death Creates the Vacancy

When: 4 September 1767
Where: death of Charles Townshend
Part of: Frederick North becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer

Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer since August 1766, died suddenly of a fever on 4 September 1767.

Townshend had taken the Chancellorship under William Pitt the Elder in August 1766 and in early 1767 proposed external import taxes on the Americans. He died somewhat suddenly of a fever on 4 September 1767, leaving the Exchequer without a holder.

Sources

Charles Townshend Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-25

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.