Founder of the Centre for Social Policy dies at 81

Peter Townsend, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Bristol University, Essex University and the London School of Economics has died of a heart attack at the age of 81.

Townsend, co-founder of the Child Poverty Action Group, had a long association with the Social Research Unit at Dartington, primarily through his leadership of social policy at Bristol.
 
The Unit was closely tied to Bristol University until the retirements of Roy Parker and Peter Townsend in the 1990s. Peter contributed to the founding of the Centre for Social Policy at Dartington in 1993 but withdrew from his fellowship on the grounds that there was too much thinking and not sufficient action. The Centre provides a context for experts to continue their work beyond formal retirement.
 
His great achievement was to rediscover and re-define poverty in the 1960s. Even today, no serious study of poverty and its effects omits reference to Townsend’s work. The strength of his contribution is reflected in the establishment of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research with which The Social Research Unit continues to have close links.
 
Two founder members of the Social Research Unit worked with Peter Townsend at the LSE. Royston Lambert became a fellow researcher after completing his first degree at Cambridge and Spencer Millham did some of the fieldwork for the study of old people’s homes, The Last Refuge.
 
Roger Bullock, Chair of Trustees at the Social Research Unit, was among Peter’s first five MA graduates at Essex University in 1965 and assisted projects on disability and poverty. Roger's obituary to Peter will appear in Friday's edition of Prevention Action.