Ernest Townsend

Ernest Townsend (1 January 1880 – 22 January 1944) was a British portraitist from Derby. Townsend studied at Derby College of Art, Heatherleys in Chelsea and the Royal Academy. Among his works were a 1915 portrait of the Right Hon. Winston Churchill when he was First Lord of the Admiralty. This picture now hangs in the National Liberal Club in London. Townsend was commissioned to create a design for the roofs of the Rolls-Royce aircraft engine factories in Derby so that they would appear to German bombers to be no more than a village.