Charles Langton Townley was born in Islington, London, in 1878, son of Charles Towney, a well-known playwright and songwriter. He joined the staff of Alfred Harmsworth's publishing ventures in the 1890s, before they were combined into the Amalgamated Press, and following his elder brother Houghton. He started out working on the women's magazine Home Chat, but soon transferred to the AP's comic papers. In the 1900s he worked on Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips, and by the 1920s he was managing editor of a group of nursery titles, The Chick's Own, Sunbeam and Tiny Tots. He is said to have been a capable artist, although it does not appear any of his drawings were published, and an original drawing by Phil May hung on his office wall. Absent-minded yet hard-working, he became very wealthly, and besides a house in London he owned a large property on Folkestone, Kent. He died at his London home on 26 April 1956.
References[]
- Alan Clark, Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors, The British Library, 1998, pp. 165