Simon Towneley

Sir Simon Peter Edmund Cosmo William Towneley ( Koch de Gooreynd; 14 December 1921 – 11 November 2022) was a British author who served as Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire from 1976 to 1997.

Early life and education Towneley was born in St George Hanover Square, London, on 14 December 1921, as the elder son of a British father of Belgian stock, Alexander Louis Wynand Koch de Gooreynd, and a British-Belgian mother, Priscilla Reyntiens. His mother was the daughter of Lady Alice Josephine, second daughter of Montagu Bertie, 7th Earl of Abingdon, and Maj. , a member of the International Olympic Committee. His mother was asked to give birth as quietly as possible, as Ignacy Jan Paderewski was downstairs giving a piano recital at the time.

The family name was changed to Worsthorne when his father attempted to enter British politics, but his parents divorced soon after. His younger brother was Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, the journalist.

Priscilla Reyntiens remarried to Montagu Norman, 1st Baron Norman in January 1933,

Career During the Second World War, Worsthorne served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, receiving a commission as a second lieutenant in December 1942. Early in 1944, he was captured near the Garigliano river in Italy and spent the remainder of the war as a PoW. 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.

He was a Lancashire County Councillor between 1961 and 1964.

Between 1969 and 1986, Towneley was the first chairman of the board at the Northern Ballet Theatre. And he was also a director of Granada Television from 1981 until 1992.

Appointments Towneley was a Justice of the peace for Lancashire from 1956. He was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire for 1971 and Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire from 1976 to 1996. He was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry from 1979 to 1988. He was a member of the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1986 and 1996. He was a trustee of the British Museum from 1988 until 1993. He was also a trustee of the Historic Churches Preservation Trust and a member of the council of the University of Manchester. He was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1994 New Year Honours.

He was also awarded the Catholic honour of being appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.

Personal life Towneley married his second cousin Mary Fitzherbert, the third of six children of Cuthbert Fitzherbert, from a well-off recusant English Roman Catholic family. She was a keen endurance equestrian, repeating Dick Turpin's ride from London to York and opening up what became known as the Mary Towneley Loop on the Pennine Bridleway. Monument to Lady Mary Towneley on the route of Mary Towneley Loop in Cliviger.

The couple had seven children; one son and six daughters: