Charles Townshend (29 August 1725 – 4 September 1767) was a British politician.

He was born at his family's seat of Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England, the second son of Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend, and Audrey (died 1788), daughter and heiress of Edward Harrison of Ball's Park, near Hertford, a lady who rivals her son in brilliancy of wit and frankness of expression.

At the Dutch university, where he matriculates on 27 October 1745, he associates with a small knot of English youths, afterwards well known in various circles of life, among whom are William Dowdeswell, John Wilkes, the witty and unprincipled reformer, and Alexander Carlyle, the genial Scotsman, who devotes some of the pages of his Autobiography to chronicling their sayings and their doings.

He represents Great Yarmouth in Parliament from 1747 to 1756, when he finds a seat for the admiralty borough of Saltash, subsequently transferring in 1761 to Harwich, another borough where the seat is in the government's gift.

Public attention is first drawn to his abilities in 1753, when he deliversa lively attack, as a younger son who might hope to promote his advancement by allying himself in marriage to a wealthy heiress, against Lord Hardwicke's marriage bill.

Although this measure passes into law, he attains this object in August 1755 by marrying Caroline Campbell (d. 1794), the eldest daughter of the 2nd duke of Argyll and the widow of Francis, Lord Dalkeith, the eldest son of the 2nd duke of Buccleuch.