| Description | SUMMARY FAMILY BIOGRAPHIES
John Simeon (1756-1824), of Walliscote, Oxfordshire
Born 1756 and educated at Eton and Oxford; called to the bar 1779, created Baronet 1815. Buried at St Giles, Reading.
Member of Parliament for Reading 1797-1802 and 1806-1818. Master in Chancery 1795-1824, senior master 1808-1824; Commissioner for the management of George III’s property 1812-20. Recorder, Reading 1779-1807. [From History of Parliament; Berkshire Record Office, D/P96/6/45, re vault in churchyard]
Edward Simeon (1758-1812), of St John’s, Isle of Wight
Born 1758, Director of the Bank of England, 1792 to1811; partner, Simeon & Co to 1812; paid for the Simeon obelisk in Reading Market place; buried at St Giles, Reading.
Portrait by William Beechey,1808, presented to Reading Museum and Town Hall in 1997 [From Art UK site]
Charles Simeon (1759-1836), of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge
Born 1759 and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. Fellow of King's College 1782; ordained priest in 1783 and associated with John Venn, confirming Charles Simeon’s evangelical and Calvinist views. He received the living of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, in 1783.
He published hundreds of sermons and sermon outlines, still in print. His chief work is a commentary on the whole Bible, entitled Horae homileticae. He died, unmarried, on 13 November 1836, and was buried in King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
[From the Revd William Carus, Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, with a selection from his writings and correspondence. London: Hatchard and Son, 1848 (3rd edition.) and Wikipedia]
Richard Godin Simeon (1784-1854)
Sir Richard Godin Simeon, born 1784, son of Sir John Simeon, 1st Baronet. He died in 1854; succeeded as 2nd Baronet Simeon of Grazeley in 1824.
[From The Peerage]
John Simeon (1815-1870)
Born 1815, son of Sir Richard Godin Simeon, 2nd baronet. He succeeded as the 3rd Baronet Simeon, of Grazeley, Berkshire, in 1854.
He initially pursued a naval career before being returned for the Isle of Wight in 1847 as a Liberal Member of Parliament. In 1848, he became a member of the Canterbury Association whose object was to create an Anglican settlement in New Zealand. In 1851 he converted to Catholicism, and resigned his seat in Parliament. He was elected again for the same constituency in 1865, for a time serving as the only Roman Catholic Member of Parliament from an English constituency. He died on 21 May 1870.
[From ‘The Last Days of Sir John Simeon’, The Month: A Magazine and Review new series, vol. II (XIII), July to December 1870, pp. 481-484 and from The Peerage and Wikipedia; photographic portrait in Wikipedia.]
Charles Simeon (1791-1858)
Born in 1791, Rear-Admiral Charles Simeon was the youngest son of Sir John Simeon, 1st Bt. and Rebecca Cornwall. He married Frances Woore, daughter of Captain Thomas Woore, on 5 July 1821 [From The Peerage]. This collection documents his naval career including being captured by the French in Leghorn and held prisoner in Verdun while his release was negotiated.
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| Admin History | Introduction
Three of the four sons of Richard Simeon, a Reading lawyer (died 1784), achieved notable success in their different fields. John (1756-1824), the second son, became a member of parliament and acquired the Grazeley Estate near Reading. Edward (1758-1812), the third son, became a director of the Bank of England and established a thriving business partnership in the City of London. Charles (1759-1836), the fourth son, became a noted Evangelical divine, and was one of the founder members of the Church Missionary Society and of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews.
This archive specifically covers some of the work and activities of John and Edward Simeon.
John Simeon: parliamentary career
One of the largest series of records in this collection document John Simeon’s parliamentary career and election campaigns. John Simeon represented the borough of Reading in Parliament from 1797 to 1802 and again from 1806 to 1818. He had stood unsuccessfully for Reading in 1782 and was returned unopposed in 1797. The History of Parliament summarises his political career as follows: ‘There is no record of his having opposed Addington’s administration but at the general election of 1802 he was defeated at Reading by an Addingtonian intruder. With the aid of his wealthy merchant brother and his own allies in the corporation Simeon re-established his position by means of an expensive programme of ostentatious charity and some dubious business transactions. He came in unopposed in 1806, when the other sitting Member stood down, retained the seat unchallenged in 1807 and survived a contest forced by a reformer in 1812’.
The History of Parliament also gives a full account of John Simeon’s activities in Parliament and of his association with various leading political figures of the times. He was particularly interested in the Poor Laws: ‘A frequent speaker on the Poor Laws, who sat on the select committees of 1817 and 1818, he was averse to schemes for wholesale reform, but ready to ‘countenance piecemeal practical improvements’. From a local perspective, his comment on the situation in Reading is of interest: ‘He had taken great pains to examine the state of the poor, and should particularly speak of the town he represented (Reading), which contained 10,000 inhabitants, of whom 7,500 were poor; but hardly a child of ten years old was to be found who had not learned to read, at some of the threepenny schools which are kept by the poor old people. He saw no necessity for writing or arithmetic.’ [HC Deb 24 April 1807 vol 9 cc538-51].
The History of Parliament notes that John Simeon was the author of a successful Treatise on the Law of Elections (1789), and ‘advocated measures to improve awareness of electoral law, 28 Feb. 1808’ in parliament. This interest is reflected in the notes he kept on his election campaigns in Reading and in a personal notebook on arrangements for his electoral campaigns in Reading.
[A Treatise on the Law of Elections, in all its branches. John Simeon, London, 1789.]
John Simeon: correspondence
As a Parliamentarian, John Simeon was very well connected. This is particularly evident in his exchange of correspondence with, amongst others, Alexander Wedderburn (Baron Loughborough), Henry Addington (Viscount Sidmouth), John Scott (Lord Eldon) and William Wilberforce, with whom he exchanged detailed correspondence about St Mary Castle Street in Reading (see Appendix I for a transcription of Wilberforce’s letters to Simeon).
Notable correspondents include:
Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Baron Loughborough (1733-1805).
Lord Chancellor from 1793 to 1801. [From History of Parliament].
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811).
Secretary at War under Pitt from 1794 to 1801. In 1804 he became first lord of the Admiralty, when he ‘introduced numerous improvements in the details of the department’. In 1802 a commission of inquiry into the financial management of the admiralty of which he had been treasurer between 1782 and 1800 was established. This led to his impeachment in 1806 and although he was acquitted, he never again held office. [From Britannica]
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1757-1844).
Speaker of the House of Commons from 1789 to 1801, at the time the letters were written, Prime minister, 1801 to 1804, and Home Secretary, 1812 to 1822. Addington, whose maternal grandfather was head of Reading School, maintained homes at Bulmershe Court, near Reading and in Devon but moved to a house in Richmond Park when he became Prime Minister. He retained links with the Reading area and donated to the town of Reading the four acres on which the Royal Berkshire Hospital is built. [From Wikipedia and History of Parliament].
Addington’s views on the foundation of St Mary’s Castle Street were sought several times by William Wilberforce (see appendix I).
Spencer Perceval (1762-1812).
Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1807, Prime Minister from 1809 until his assassination in 1812. Like Simeon, he was an opponent of Catholic emancipation. [From Britannica].
Lord Eldon, John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (1751-1838).
Lord Chancellor of England for much of the period between 1801 and 1827. He opposed Catholic political emancipation, the abolition of imprisonment as a punishment for debtors, the abolition of the slave trade, and the reform of the House of Commons. As Attorney General from 1793 he was largely responsible for the measures that the ministry of William Pitt the Younger took to suppress political meetings and literature considered seditious. In 1799 he became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas and was created Baron Eldon. [From Britannica].
There is a statue of him in Eldon Square, Reading.
William Wilberforce (1759-1833).
Philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. He was born in Kingston upon Hull and began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming an independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire (1784–1812). Wilberforce championed causes such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice, British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, the foundation of the Church Mission Society, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He was buried in Westminster Abbey [From Wikipedia and History of Parliament].
It appears that he met and exchanged correspondence with Charles Simeon, brother of John, at various stages in his life.
John Simeon’s local correspondence is also noteworthy. His Reading network which included Dr Valpy, Matthias Deane and John Hooper was extensive.
Local correspondents include:
Dr Richard Valpy (1754-1836).
Born in Jersey and educated in Normandy, Southampton and at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1777 he took orders and in 1781 he became headmaster of Reading Grammar School, a post which he held for fifty years. During the early part of Valpy's long headship the school flourished, with at least 120 boys. He was the author of Greek and Latin grammars which enjoyed a large circulation. Richard Valpy died in London and buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. A statue to him was erected in St. Lawrence's church in Reading. [From Wikipedia]
Matthias Deane.
Attorney and Scrivener, of Reading, clerk to the Reading Paving Act Commissioners, declared bankrupt 1795. [From Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre Catalogue 9/35/129]
John Hooper (1764-c.1849).
The grandson of Dr John Hooper of Reading (d.1773), inventor and patentee of Hooper's Female Pills [From BRO, D/EX1830].
In his correspondence with Simeon, Hooper engages with a wide variety of topics ranging from the unsuitability of cumulating posts while being a Member of Parliament to the poor law provision in respect of midwifery.
Simeon & Co Partnership
The third main group of records in this collection are those which relate to the business built up by John’s brother Edward. The Simeon & Co Partnership, established by Edward Simeon with George Meyer and Charles Ogleby, was based at Salvadore House, Bishopsgate, in the City of London. The Partnership was re-founded in 1807, when Edward Simeon’s nephew, son of John, and also named Edward, was brought into the partnership. The Articles of Partnership provide evidence of extensive and significant financial transactions.
On Edward Simeon senior’s death on 14th December 1812, his brothers John and Charles took on the slow task of settling his estate. The executorship accounts were finalised in June 1820. In addition to settling the Partnership, Edward Simeon’s will also provided for bequests to his nieces and nephews and to a number of charities in Reading and London. Edward Simeon, who owned property on the Isle of Wight and lived at Fitzroy Farm in Highgate, Middlesex where he died, was buried at St Giles, Reading. [From the biography of his brother Charles.] |