Kenneth Peter Townend (26 April 1921 - 16 July 2001) was a British genealogist and social editor. He served as editor of

Burke's Peerage Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great ...

and later as social editor of '' Tatler''.

Early life and education

Townend was born in

Leeds Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...

on 26 April 1921, son of Claude William Townend, a farmer and Army riding instructor, and Florence Lily, née Atkinson. As a child, he suffered from

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion ...

, which meant he had little formal education, but did attend King's School, Pontefract. His mother "keenly followed the doings of the Royal Family and aristocracy", and her son was surrounded by society magazines from an early age.

Career

Townend served in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as a writer/ clerk, and afterwards joined

under

L. G. Pine Leslie Gilbert Pine (22 December 1907 – 15 May 1987) was a British writer, lecturer, and researcher in the areas of genealogy, nobility, history, heraldry and animal welfare. Early life and education Pine was born at Bristol, the son of Henry Mo ...

as an archivist. He became editor of Burke's in 1960 until he was replaced by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd in 1971 or 1972, by which time he was social editor of '' Tatler'' magazine,

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

, obituary by Richard Oldfield, The Independent, Friday 20 July 2001. and had become renowned for his organisation of the vestigial UK ' deb scene'. Townend reportedly asked Jennie Hallam-Peel to "keep the

Season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

alive" prior to his death, leading to the revamping of the Queen Charlotte's Ball.

References

1921 births 2001 deaths English genealogists English magazine editors People educated at The King's School, Pontefract Royal Navy personnel of World War II Writers from Leeds {{UK-historian-stub