William Townsend, painter, was born in London and studied at the Slade School of Art between 1926 and 1929. He held his first solo exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery in 1931, and served as a battery officer in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. From 1946 until 1949 Townsend taught part-time at Camberwell School of Art, before joining the teaching staff at the Slade School of Art, becoming Senior Lecturer in 1957. During the 1960s he focused more on journalism, for instance, broadcasting programmes on the BBC about townscapes. From 1966 he was head of painting at the Banff School, Alberta, Canada, and from 1968, he was Professor at University College London, responsible for the postgraduate department at the Slade. He died in Banff in 1973. Retrospective exhibitions of his work were held at the Tate Gallery (1976) and the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol (1978). His work can be found in the Tate Collection.
