MB ChB Manch 1942; DTM Liv 1947; MRCP Lond 1948.
Townshend was born on 10 August 1918 and gained his medical education at the University of Manchester where he gained a number of academic distinctions. He was RMO at Salford Royal Hospital before serving as a ship's surgeon in the merchant navy, and later a surgeon lieutenant in the RNVR during the second world war. Townshend worked as research assistant at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine before being appointed senior medical registrar at Salford Royal Hospital, and later senior registrar in chest diseases at Manchester Chest Clinic.