Artist, designer and teacher, whose work had strong abstract tendencies. Townsend lived in Hastings, Sussex, where he studied at the College of Art, also at the Central School in London. He did freelance design for Hornsey Pottery, Pilkington Glass and James Galt Toys; teaching included peripatetic tutor for East Sussex Education Committee; he travelled and worked in Sweden, France and Germany; and from 1991–8 was art director of Pickpocket Books. Townsend exhibited with the Senefelder Group, L G, Young Contemporaries and Printmakers’ Council, with other shows at Camden Arts Centre, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, the Royal Festival Hall, Cross Street Gallery and Uppsala University Gallery, Sweden. Collections holding his works included Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne and Gemeentelijk Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.