Among distinguished sociologists, Peter Townsend was Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bristol, and author of possibly one of the most extensive surveys in the twentieth-century, Poverty in the United Kingdom. The last position he held was Professor of International Social Policy at the London School of Economics. Peter Townsend was one of the co-founders of the University of Essex.
On Peter Townsend's death in 2009, reflections on his contribution to social policy appeared in obituaries in The Guardian, The Independent and The Times amongst other newspapers around the world. Born in Middlesbrough in 1928, Peter Townsend has spent his career promoting social reform through the Child Poverty Action Group.
Peter Townsend began his studies of poverty with Brian Abel-Smith in order to demonstrate the persistence of poverty in affluent, post-war Britain. Peter Townsend's Poverty in the United Kingdom has been described as a 'bible' for the poverty lobby (Donnison, 1979) but it has nonetheless had little effect in terms of reform, which would not greatly surprise Townsend but merely disappoint him.
Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the type of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and the amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged or approved in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average family that they are in effect excluded from the ordinary living patterns, customs, and activities. - Townsend, P. (1979). Poverty in the United Kingdom. London: Penguin.
Peter Brereton Townsend
Geoff Watts, The Lancet. Most researchers, even in the social sciences, like to
stress their detachment, their objectivity. Trained as an anthropologist, he
believed that the best way of describing a society was to understand it, and the
best way to understand it was to immerse yourself in it. He described meeting a
lonely middle-aged woman living in the East End. “I deliberately went back
several times to try to get to know her…I'll never forget going to see her one
Christmas Eve. I think I took her a box of biscuits, and the only sign of
Christmas was a piece of Woolworth's Christmas wrapping paper, stuck up over the
mantel-piece.”