Simon Towneley

British author (1921–2022)

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.

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.

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.