Ian Townsend, Homeopathic Practitioner, but Always a Teacher First; He Was 76

Ian Townsend(Photo courtesy- Rose Townsend)

Several months before his passing—I had no idea how ill he was—I asked and encouraged Ian to write his own obituary. After a bit of convincing, he agreed and the following is my edited version with the patient assistance of his widow, Rose.

“I didn't set out with a burning vocation to teach, but every time I moved away from it, I found myself drawn back into teaching science, teaching technology, homeopathy, supervision, and counseling. I eventually gave in and admitted that I was a teacher!”

–Ian Townsend.

Mr. Townsend, F.S.Hom., was born in 1947, in Scotland, and raised in North London. He had an early love of reading for leisure, mostly science fiction and fantasy. That positive and enjoyable habit stayed with him throughout his life, while his interest in psychology and homeopathy, interestingly enough, began when he was a tween. Ian haunted local libraries, reading quite advanced stuff, by his own admission, on psychology. “William James, I think, nearly 40 years later, reading psychology books at UCLan, none of it seemed new—so I must have done a lot of reading back then.” At that same young age, he recalls being absolutely “bowled over” when he discovered two of Dorothy Shepherd's notable books, Magic of the Minimum Dose and More Magic of the Minimum Dose.

As a grammar schoolboy, he loved learning, particularly the sciences, but his ambition to study geology was thwarted by his less than stellar “A” level test scores. He also had a keen interest in archeology and, spotting an advertisement in the Sunday Times for volunteers to work on a Hill Fort from the Iron Age in North Wales, he spent many a summer excavating at the Roman Palace in Fishbourne (Chichester), Portsmouth, and the Roman Bath working under Barry Cunliffe, Emeritus Professor of European Archeology, Oxford University.

Later, after a brief spell working as a Tax Officer, he became convinced him that the best way to carry on studying the sciences was to go back into education. The mid-1960s saw him studying at Padgate College of Education in Warrington, where he qualified in 1969 (he was nearly thrown out of school as he set his student accommodation on fire in “a misguided piece of scientific tomfoolery,” in his own words).

Ian qualified with postgraduate studies in Educational Technology, an MA in Alternative Educational Studies from the University of York, and upon receiving inspiration from Sheila Ryan, he received qualifications in person-centered and person-centered group counseling as well as person-centered supervision. When Ian received, from the University of Derby, a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Supervision, he looked like he would never stop learning.

Thus, it is no less surprising that although he practiced as a homeopath and supervisor in his middle years, he shepherded more than 50 cohorts of students through their homeopathic training. Many remember his carefully prepared materia medica lectures, which sometimes involved rubber spiders flying across the room, incense, and guided imagery—although not always at the same time.

“When I met Ian at the School of Homeopathic Medicine up in North Yorkshire, I was asked to pick a Clinical Tutor. I asked Ian if he would be willing to be mine. He asked me why I chose him? I replied: “You make me dot my ‘I's’ and cross my ‘T's’” (this was a man who plastic-coated every single page in his notebook). He was a left-brain to my right-brain. He helped me become a good homeopath without sacrificing my spiritual nature or my psychic abilities. He once said to me, “Ambika, put away your pendulum and learn to think!” I realized I had not had a cogent thought in my life. I simply perceived reality. In years since, I find myself saying to clients: “Learn to think about this situation. It will give you courage and traction.” Ian once suggested I visit a good friend of his who was a past-life regression therapist. I studied with her for 2 years. He knew it would be a fruitful relationship.”

“Ian was a great teacher, but he was also a good friend. He invited me to his daughter Jeni's music recitals in Buxton along with Rose, his wife, and his mother-in-law. He was always kind, always clear, and helped me feel I was not a stranger in a strange land. I am forever grateful for his warmth and kindness. He also insisted I go for the RSHom. and reviewed all my cases for submission, always insisting on greater clarity, more definition, more precision. He had a warmth and a kindness that helped me find my bearings during my years in the UK. Once, when a client aggravated on a remedy and was placed in a private psychiatric hospital, I became very upset feeling it was all my fault. I phoned Ian who asked me: “Who is responsible for her aggravation?” I whispered, “I am.” He asked me again in a very commanding voice: “Who is responsible for her aggravation?” I hesitated and whispered, “I don't know.” He asked a third time: “Who is responsible for her aggravation?” This time I responded by saying “She is!” He said, “Well done, Ambika. Have a nice weekend!” and hung up the phone. Wow, what a lesson that was!”

“He was brave, courageous, and clear through years of illness. I am grateful I knew him; thankful he came into my life and helped me to stand on my two feet as a homeopath, as a single woman, responsible for my choices and better able to serve others from that place.”

“May he rest in peace in the High Heavens. May his family and colleagues remember a fine man with a good heart and a powerful intellect. With deep respect for this fine man.” –Ambika Wauters (e-mail communication, April 14, 2023)

Ian taught at many of the British homeopathic colleges and worked with Margaret Roy for 10 years at Glasgow for the Scottish College of Homeopathy. He worked, in supporting roles, at the London College of Homoeopathy (LCCH) in Sheffield and London, and taught B.Sc. and M.Sc. courses at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). In 2011, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Society of Homeopaths for his service to education.

Because of his love for things technical, for example, hi-fi and recording equipment, overhead projectors, etc., he was at the forefront of advances in technology teaching throughout his half-century career. In the 1960s, he won a Kodak Teaching Fellowship (worth £40,000 in today's cash) as a secondary teacher in Hampshire. With that award, he was able to produce 8-mm film cartridge and tape-slide programs for science education, utilizing his lifelong love of photography.

The 1970s saw him involved in writing programmed learning texts and supporting the introduction of computer-assisted learning and other technologies for nursing education, where he also introduced self-development and self-awareness courses. Secondary school teaching led to a yearlong post as Lecturer in Educational Technology at Whitelands College of Education. He amused many with his stories from that time, which involved “sherry at every lunch!”

If all of that was not enough. he worked for 10 years as the National Education Advisor for the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors—an official body responsible for nurse training in the United Kingdom, planning and delivering short courses to any school of nursing interested in hosting them. This was before the advent of a university-based graduate course of study. He continued to focus on teaching technology, curriculum, and personal development, stress reduction, self-awareness, and finally computer-assisted learning.

By the mid-1970s, he found that although he could deliver a training course and lead groups, something seemed to still be missing. Synchronicity struck and his then supervisor offered him a rare opportunity to pursue studies at the first academic center for humanistic and transpersonal psychology and education in Europe (the John Heron's Human Potential Research Project at the University of Surrey) and at the British Postgraduate Medical Federation. This latter organization provided early and very radical postgraduate courses for doctors. He completed the entire suite of courses at both institutions.

A decade-long involvement with the reevaluation, co-counseling movement followed. This experience provided him an opportunity to work within a radical community that believed that “psychotherapy” and “counseling” was based on a set of skills that could be learnt and practiced by almost anyone as a collaborative, shared, equal venture. Interestingly, he was influenced by a biologist, who made him aware very clearly on and via experiments how the process of homeostasis covered mental and emotional processes as well as physiological ones. This proved for him to be a seminal grounding in the workings of the Vital Force.

“He was one of the few who recognized the important connections of mind, body and emotion and how it has been ignored by both medicine and psychology.”–Jane Ferris, Ph.D. (e-mail communication, April 27, 2023)

“He was a caring, kind, down to earth and visionary soul who exemplified, highlighted, and elevated the importance and impact of therapeutic presence and unconditional positive regard in the homeopathic client - practitioner relationship, with much benefit to the field.”–Christopher K. Johannes, Ph.D.¹ (e-mail communication April 7, 2023)

“Counseling” had always fascinated him. Having attended a yearlong foundation training, he was accepted on two separate 4-year professional courses in the same week—Diana Whitmore's “Psychosynthesis” and Ian Gordon-Brown's “Transpersonal Psychology.” He was about to make the choice and sign up when he went to visit a friend in Newcastle. “Can't come out with you tonight,” his friend said, “I'm going to a talk by a local dentist's daughter…you're always welcome to come along with me.” Destiny struck when he decided to join her.

The talk, on “homeopathic dentistry,” was by a student at the Northern College of Homeopathic Medicine. Within the week, he applied for admission and, after an interview, found himself sitting in a classroom with all those odd books in front of him. That was in 1983. The following year, he and his classmates set up the Darlington Collective, the first successful cooperative educational and clinical group to negotiate with the Society of Homeopaths. This group employed its own teachers (regular visiting lecturers were Sheilagh Creasy, Margaret Roy, and Jeremy Sherr) and guided enrollees successfully into practice. He was part of the first year's intake of the Dynamis School in 1989. His peers probably remember him practicing his alto sax at weekend getaways. He was a lifelong lover of music, especially the folk music of the clubs he attended in the 60s, then the electric folk of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and Sandy Denny. He took his son to the final concert of The Grateful Dead. He was also a lover of jazz.

“I met Ian in the very early days of UK homoeopathy. I was teaching in the Northern College of Homoeopathy. Partly as a result of this teaching, the second year set up their own study group named, The Darlington Collective, later the DD, short for the Darlington Degenerates. Together with the MM, or Malvern Maniacs, this became the first class of the Dynamis School in 1987. The group proved Hydrogen and Chocolate. Ian was a prominent, hardworking, and intelligent member of the group. Always there, always contributing, always with something interesting or amusing to add. Our paths joined for many years, and it was a pleasure and privilege to know him. We, the first Dynamis group and all of homoeopathy, will miss him.” –Jeremy Sherr (e-mail communication, April 10, 2023)

Ian was an early and enthusiastic adopter, always at the cutting edge of any innovation. Early in his practice, which covered several towns in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire as well as Sheffield and York, he made video recordings of patient cases and, in 1989, he and colleagues from the DD were arguably the first homeopaths to offer a yearlong video-patient-based, postgraduate course entitled “Putting Principles into Practice.”

By the 1990s, well before the Internet had really made its mark, he was one of the first in the profession to use web-based and e-mail communications to initiate and lead case discussions via an international online journal. Obviously, this was long before Skype, Zoom, and other Internet platforms came round.

The Darlington Collective transformed into the Darlington (and then Sheffield) Colleges of Classical Homeopathy with Bob Fordham, Tricia Griffin, Gill Scott, and Andrea Bartig and himself cooperatively running it. Eventually, under Colin and Mary Hood, their private homeopathy college became affiliated with the London College of Classical Homeopathy, which offered the second undergraduate degree course in homeopathy in Europe, at the UCLan. His initial years at that institution saw him supporting first- and second-year modules on communication skills as he became increasingly interested in the therapeutic relationship, and how to engage student homeopaths with a rigorous and practical understanding of it. The last years of his academic career were dedicated to demonstrating, to both professions, the links between homeopathy and person-centered practice.

Ian qualified as an RSHom. with the society in 1988 and remained a member until his retirement in 2011. As its first employed Professional Conduct Officer (1999–2003), he worked with the Professional Conduct team to revise the Code of Ethics, and then oversaw over 1,000 enquiries from members of the public and fellow homeopaths.

Ian regularly contributed to the society's organ, The Homeopath (in its day, The Society Newsletter). In the course of his working life, he wrote extensively. One might count some 300 articles and communications, several book chapters, and books in the various fields, that is, education, technology, homeopathy, and supervision. He gave workshops or presentations in Amsterdam, Denver, Oslo, and throughout the isles, and made presentations to both homeopathy and person-centered conferences in the United Kingdom and the United States.⁽¹⁾

From 1998 to 2011, he was part of a team working with Kate Chatfield, Jean Duckworth, and Hazel Partington, which drove the use of e-Learning technologies in both undergraduate and postgraduate complementary medical courses. That included an acclaimed distance learning M.Sc. Homeopathy. The team received a “Highly Commended” award in the July 2011 Creation of a Superlative Student Experience category for UCLan's Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award. In that year, he retired as Senior Lecturer of UCLan's Division of Continuing and Long-Term Care, School of Health. He worked to the day he retired as he was in the process of interviewing students for two new counseling courses at the university's Blackburn College. Unretired and unrelenting, he spent the next 5 years training person-centered counselors and monitored their placement practicums.

Before transitioning to the spirit world, Ian lived with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma since it was first diagnosed in 2002. The cause of his passing, according to his wife Rose, which occurred on February 15, 2023, was the result of a glioblastoma tumor in the center of his brain. He had survived the non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a bout of the coronavirus in 2020, and grade 4 prostate cancer.

“Though we were married for 53 years, I learnt so much about him during the last few months of his life. I always knew of his workaholic ways, which extended into an uncommon willingness and generosity to help people. These reflections have allowed me to see just how many he truly helped—he was mentoring a student just 14 days before he passed. He was delighted when she was awarded a distinction.”

“He was very shy when we first met and couldn't go into a shop. If he invited friends, he'd stay with them for a few minutes and then go upstairs until they left.

“One story he told just before he died was that he'd been a member of the MI5 and MI6.² He'd just come back from the Caribbean and we were shortly going somewhere else but I couldn't remember where. He explained that he communicated with MI5 via the “automatic pain reliever.”⁽²⁾

“While in hospice he had so many visitors and all I would hear would be laughter coming from his room. It took his caregivers twice as long to look after him than it should have. He wished to die in East Lancashire Hospice and spent his last few days there. Musical pieces he chose for his funeral included several from two of his favorite groups, Sandy Denny and the Grateful Dead.”-Rose Townsend (email communication April, 2023).

Ian leaves his wife of 53 years, Rosemary, and their children Jeni and Michael, and seven grandchildren.

“Back in the early 1990s, when I was a student at the North West College of Homoeopathy, he gave me my first taste of clinical experience at his practice in Sheffield, where I now live. He helped me set up my own practice once I qualified when I was living in Derbyshire. Generous with his time and expertise, he was also homeopath to me and my family for several years and a friend and mentor beyond that time. He was inspirational in many ways, most especially in his approach to his own health problems. His role as a teacher means that he has touched and influenced many lives. It's a wonderful legacy.”–Nicky Crewe (e-mail communication, April 25, 2023)

Publication History

Article published online:
10 August 2023