Ernest Darwin Simon
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The Right Honourable The Lord Simon of Wythenshawe |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Ernest Emil Darwin Simon 9 October 1879 Didsbury, Manchester, England |
| Died | 3 October 1960 (aged 80) Withington, Manchester, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | |
| Spouse(s) | Shena Dorothy Potter (m. 1912) |
| Children | |
| Alma mater | Pembroke College, Cambridge |
| Profession | Industrialist, politician and public servant |
Ernest Emil Darwin Simon, 1st Baron Simon of Wythenshawe (9 October 1879 – 3 October 1960) was a British industrialist, politician and public servant. Lord Mayor of Manchester in 1921–1922, he was a member of parliament for two terms between 1923 and 1931 before being elevated to the peerage and serving as the Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors.
Simon was born in Didsbury, Manchester, as the eldest son of Henry Gustav Simon and Emily Stoehr. He was educated at Rugby School and studied mechanical sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
In 1912 he married Shena Dorothy Potter (1883–1972), a noted social reformer. They had three children: Roger, a solicitor and journalist; Brian, an educationalist and historian; and a daughter who died in childhood. His nephew is C. G. H. Simon.
After leaving Cambridge on the death of his father, he entered the family's engineering business, Simon Carves, manufacturers of flour milling machinery and coke ovens. He successfully expanded the company into building grain silos, and with the wealth generated by the business pursued outside interests, including politics.
Simon served as a member of Manchester City Council from 1912 to 1925, and as Lord Mayor of Manchester in 1921–1922, the youngest person at the time to have held the office. He is chiefly remembered for the slum clearances and housing projects he initiated in the city. He purchased Wythenshawe Hall and park from Robert Henry Grenville Tatton in 1926 and donated them to the city; the estate farmland became one on Britain's largest housing estates, Wythenshawe.
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