Martin Townsend

Martin Townsend (11 July 1960 – 17 October 2025) was a British journalist. He was the editor of the Sunday Express from 2001 to 2018.

Education and career Townsend attended Harrow County School for Boys (which became Harrow High School in 1975) and the London College of Printing. He gained his first job as a journalist in 1979, working on Caravan magazine, then was pop music correspondent at Today.

In 1987, Townsend became a freelance reporter, but in 1994 was appointed showbusiness editor of The Mail on Sundays You magazine,

In 2006, Townsend had a cameo role in the television series Hustle in which he, as editor of the Sunday Express, bought an exposé story from some con men regarding the unscrupulous editor of a rival (fictional) Sunday newspaper.

Personal life and death In 1989, Townsend married Jane O'Gorman. The couple had two sons and a daughter. O'Gorman has worked at the Daily Star as the paper's agony aunt.

Townsend died from pancreatic cancer at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, on 17 October 2025, at the age of 65.

Awards and recognition In 2007, Townsend published The Father I Had, an autobiographical account of his relationship with his father, who had bipolar disorder. This won the Mind Book of the Year Award 2008. Lynn Barber, in her Sunday Times review wrote that "the bulk of this memoir, about getting on, is a ripping yarn, fluently and wittily told".

In late 2018, it was announced Townsend had been appointed by the public relations company Pagefield as a partner. The company's clients include Camelot which was the franchise holder for the National Lottery.