Robert Vere Kingston Townshend (6A51)
| Date of Birth: | 20 Sep 1917 |
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| Date of Death: | 23 October 2011 |
| Generation: | 8th |
| Residence: | Middleton, Saxmundham, Suffolk |
| Father: | Major Philip Achilles Kingston Townshend OBE [6A25] |
| Mother: | Earnshaw-Howell, Zoë Elaine |
| Spouse: |
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| See Also: | Table VIA ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree |
Notes for Robert Vere Kingston Townshend
Robert was educated at Summerhill School and this had a profound affect on his approach to life. After leaving Summerhill he undertook training as an electrical engineer at Faraday House in London, but found the higher maths too difficult, and then went to the Central School of Arts and Crafts to study cabinet making. However, his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and, following training as a radio officer, he joined the merchant navy. During his wartime service he sailed, unescorted, on the Arctic convoy delivering explosives to Murmansk.
Married 1943. Robert met Eva at Thomson’s health clinic in Edinburgh.
Following the war Robert resumed his training as a cabinet maker at Edward Barnsley’s Workshop in Hampshire and then in 1948 moved with his family to Middleton.
He had a long and productive career as a cabinet maker, producing many fine pieces of furniture, very much in the classical idiom, finding beauty in the proportion and style of the ancient Greeks and the Regency period.
Robert died peacefully aged 94. His sons recorded his recitation of the Doctor's Lament by AP Herbert shortly before he died.
Eva was born 17 May 1922 and died on 24 January 1980.