Donald Chisholm Towner (born Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, 1903; died London 1985) was a collector and historian of British ceramics and painter.
Both Towner and Ravilious received further scholarships in 1923 to study at the Royal College of Art in London, graduating with a Diploma in 1926.
He then moved to Holly Hill in Hampstead in 1927 with his mother, who had sold the family home in Eastbourne and bought a house there.
He rented a studio nearby and stayed at Holly Hill for ten years[7] before moving to 8 Church Row, Hampstead in 1937, a terrace house dating to the early eighteenth century.
Towner spent the war years between 1939 and 1945 in the South Downs where he combined agricultural work with commissions for paintings from Bibby, an animal feed company[9] and local farmers.
[12] Towner's interest in collecting ceramics is thought to have started in earnest once he returned to his home at 8 Church Row, Hampstead after the war.
A next-door neighbour was Egan Mew, a noted collector and writer of the time and it is possible he guided Towner's early interests.
[11] Towner also knew Lord Shelburne, a collector of British and European ceramics whose home at Hinton Ampner he painted a number of times in the 1930s.
In 1977 he produced a catalogue in celebration of the ECC's Golden Jubilee together with Robert Charleston, formerly keeper of ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.