Career
Alexander Koch de Gooreynd changed the family name prior to the birth of Towneley"s younger brother, Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, the journalist. The brothers were raised Catholic, but did not attend denominational schools. Worsthorne assumed the surname and arms of Towneley, an old recusant family, by royal licence.
At the time of his wedding, he changed his name and took on the remaining Lancashire inheritance of that family, of which his great-grandmother Caroline Theresa, Lady Abingdon, had been one of the three co-heiresses.
In 1954 (under the name Simon Towneley Worsthorne) he published Venetian Opera in the 17th Century, a seminal study of the field, which played a significant role in the remarkable revival of the Venetian opera repertory in the latter 20th century. Lady Towneley died in 2001 from cancer, aged 65.