Bill (William Ernest) Townsley has died at the age of 86.
Mr Townsley was born in 1922 in Vancouver and lived in North Vancouver. He volunteered for the RCAF when war broke out in 1939 and spent the war years on bomber maintenance in and around Vancouver. After demob in 1945 he went first to UBC where he studied forestry and then to Berkeley to do a Masters in Business Administration in 1948.
He returned to work in the Vancouver area and Victoria, marrying his first wife, Pat, in 1950. They moved to Seattle where he worked as an accountant at the Bon Marché.
In 1951 they moved to Lac La Hache in the Cariboo District of British Columbia where he worked managing a sawmill and logging operation, living in the Blackwater Camp.
When the sawmill was sold in 1960, Mr Townsley was offered a job working with the British Columbia Lumber Manufacturers Association in the UK and made the move with the family to England where they established themselves first in Woking, then Ottershaw and finally in West Clandon in 1968.
He then became head of the BCLMA which was eventually to become the Council of Forest Industries (COFI). He continued to work with COFI until 1987 when he retired. He continued to consult for the Shingle and Shake Association of British Columbia until recently.
Pat died in 1981 and he remarried in 1988. He leaves his second wife Beverley, four sons Victor, Graham, Philip and Brooke, a stepson and six grandchildren.
