Ralph Townsend

Ralph Douglas Townsend (born 13 December 1951, in Nedlands, West Australia) is an educational consultant. He was Chairman of Prep Schools Trust (2017-2022) and Special Adviser to the President of Keio University and President of Keio Academy of New York (2017-2021). He currently serves on the International Development Group of the Jesuit Refugee Service. He was Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School (1989–1999), Oundle School (1999–2005), and Winchester College (2005–2016). Career After brief teaching appointments at Dover College and Abingdon School, he proceeded to further study at Oxford University. He was first Senior Scholar at Keble College of Oxford University, then a Junior Research Fellow, Tutor and Dean of Degrees at Lincoln College, where he was the Anglican chaplain. He resigned from this post in 1985 when he decided to join the Roman Catholic Church. He took up a teaching post at Eton College in 1985. He left as Head of Personal Education in 1989 to become Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School. While in Sydney, Townsend was Patron of the Australian Musicians' Academy and President of the New South Wales Classical Association. After ten years in that post, he returned to England to become Headmaster of Oundle School. In 2005, he was appointed Headmaster of Winchester, the first Roman Catholic to hold that post since the English Reformation. In 2011 he was invested a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. He has written books, articles and reviews in the areas of church history, westerns, religious literature and education.