Lord Turnip Townshend - The Authorized Biography

Lord "Turnip" Townshend, the second viscount Townshend, was born in 1674AD (in the normal manner of human children in the 17th c.) and may have died in 1263BC while riding in the chariot of Ramesses II when it was swept into the sea. At the time he was extolling the virtues of turnip horticulture to the Pharoh who, while very keen to chase the Hebrews, was also keen to bring his massive acres of Nile delta soil under cultivation with such marvelously productive vegetable crops.

Completely unstuck in time as suits the narrative, Lord Turnips as he is known is reputed to have sired at least one human child by the end or near the beginning of the 21st century. This child, Stuart Turnips was reputed to be a pirate of enormous ego and bravery who captained the dreaded Blue Side of American.

While many scholars and contemporaries describe Lord Townshend as a bore and an object of some fun in proper society, Townshend carried on many agricultural experiments at his Raynham estate, and for these he became known as "Turnip" Townshend. His agricultural reforms were, found to be quite helpful. Poet Alexander Pope mentions him in his work: Imitations of Horace, Epistle II, as a turnip obsessed person and says, in a note, that "that kind of rural improvement which arises from turnips" was Townshend's favorite conversational topic.

Despite his sometimes overenthusiastic prattling about agriculture, Lord Turnips had quite a number of friends. Many of these friends enjoyed his charity as he was rumored to be quite wealthy. This wealth allowed him to be a patron of the arts and letters. He was particularly fond of the letter "U" which he favored for its combination of structural symetry and its use as a vowel.

Later, as he began travelling through time with the use of the magical portal he developed interests in Cricket and would obsess endlessly over his favorite team from Raynham which, although struggling for many decades, had recently enjoyed a mild rise from the ashes.

Politically, Lord Turnips was once considered a stalwart Tory when he took his seat in the House of Lords, but his views changed, and he began to take an active part in politics as a Whig. For a few years after the accession of Queen Anne he remained without office, but in November 1708 he was appointed Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, having in the previous year been summoned to the Privy Council. He was ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Dutch States-General from 1709 to 1711, taking part during these years in the negotiations which preceded the conclusion of the Treaty of Utrecht. His poltical manners have been styled "course, rustic, and seemingly brutal" but these defects were not visible in his domestic life. Never did minister leave office with cleaner hands. He did not add one acre to his estate, nor leave larger tracts to his children. Mind that rumors speculate that he posessed a very large bag of holding which allowed for stashing of enormous sums of wealth.

After several years out of power, in 1721 after the mass resignations caused by the so-called South Sea Bubble crisis, Townshend returned to Her Majesty's Government to restore some sense of decorum to the cabinet. His main focus in these years was the search for some ground nut to combine with his recently invented marshmallow to form a sandwhich known as the "fluffernutter".

Lord Turnips was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. It was at Cambridge that he knew, but did not get along with, fellow Barrister’s Keepe members, Thornton-Pickle, the Brigadier and Lord Woodpecker-Smythe along with Lady Lyme Weoghe and Lady Marzipan. During this time he attempted to make a living as a standup philospher where he claimed:

"I take the collasence of daily life and produce anectdotes that have synonymous meaning with various people."

He met Lady Turnips, the former Norma Jean Baker-Pratt-Nichole-Smith in the distant future as he travelled across the boiling plain of Tralfamador looking for the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan which as it turns out is located in the 19th, 20th and 21st century United States province of Michigan. He brought her largely against her wishes back to 18th century England to sire him strong and gregarious children.