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20 November 2009: Peter Townsend Memorial Service and Conference

UPDATED:

Peter Townsend in Memoriam
(1928-2009)

Memorial service: 19th of November, 2009. St Martins, Trafalgar Sq at 11.00 am

A Peter Townsend Memorial Conference will be held on Friday 20th November at the Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL, (nearest tube Holborn) from 10am till 4pm. Admission free, but please e-mail: townsend-memorial@bristol.ac.uk (organised by Dave Gordon)

Peter Townsend, the founding professor of Sociology at Essex, died on 7th June 2009. Peter was a pioneer of research on poverty and inequality and an energetic campaigner for social justice, including a two decade period as Chair of the Child Poverty Action Group. Peter played a key role in the post-war development of Sociology, not least through his presence here at Essex, where he was based from 1963 until 1982. During this time he helped create a distinctive interdisciplinary department, which included academic staff with backgrounds in social policy, anthropology, social history, social psychology, geography, philosophy, classics, and the natural sciences.  The diversity that he encouraged continues to characterise the Sociology Department at Essex to this day. Peter was also instrumental in appointing researchers and lecturers of the very highest quality, establishing the foundations for Essex’s continued success in research and in various research evaluation exercises. 

We will be adding further contributions to the site from colleagues past and present, but below are links to obituaries from various national newspapers including The Guardian, and tributes from colleagues who worked with Peter.
 We include a link to a piece written by Peter himself, ‘The Fortunes of Sociology at Essex 1963-1882’, which commemorates the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Sociology at Essex.

You can access a list of Peter's publications and you can also hear extracts from an interview with Peter conducted by Paul Thompson and read the full transcript.

If you would like to post a  tribute to this page for Peter Townsend, please email Alexa Gordon with your tribute.

Personal tributes from the Department of Sociology at The University of Essex

Obituaries and other related items 
* University of Essex Wyvern magazine
*Department on Social Policy, LSE
*Centre for the study of Human Rights, LSE
*ESDS Qualidata
*The University of Bristol
*Prevention Action
*Unicef
*Community Care
*The Guardian
*The Guardian II
*The Guardian III
*The Times
*The Independant
*Next Left