SIMON, Ernest Emil Darwin
Type
9th October 1879 to 3rd October 1960
Occupation
Biographical Text
Simon was a Liberal politician who later switched to the Labour Party. He was an advocate of social reform and close friend of Beatrice and Sidney Webb.
Simon was born in Didsbury, Manchester on 9 October 1879, the son of an engineer and businessman, the owner of the Simon Engineering Group. He was educated at Rugby School and the Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read mathematics and gained a first. After university he took over the management of the family business – his father had died recently – and ran it for several years.
Simon had an early interest in social reform. He joined the Liberal Party, probably while still at university. He also developed a friendship with Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and shared many of their ideas. He was one of the founders of The New Statesman and served as director of the company that published it. In 1912 he married Sheena Potter, an educational and social reformer who went on to serve for many years on Manchester City Council.
In the same year Simon himself went into politics, and was elected to Manchester City Council. He served as a member of the housing committee, where he tackled issues such as housing quality and air pollution. In 1921-2 he served as lord mayor of Manchester. His first book, A City Council from Within, was a memoir of his time in local politics.
In 1923 Simon entered parliament as Liberal MP for Manchester Withington. He was prominent among those calling for the party to unify, and also for it to adopt a coherent industrial policy. Although he lost his seat in 1924, he continued to be prominent in the Liberal Party and was behind the initiative that produced the Liberal business manifesto, Britain’s Industrial Future, in 1928. Simon again stood for parliament in Manchester Withington in 1929, and was re-elected, and in 1931 was briefly parliamentary under-secretary at the Ministry of Health before losing his seat in the general election of October that year. He was knighted in 1932.
During the 1930s Simon became disillusioned with the Liberal Party and his politics drifted towards the left. He argued for progressive housing policies, most notably in his book The Anti-Slum Campaign, and was co-founder of the educational charity the Council for Educational Citizenship. He also devoted himself to his business interests. During the Second World War he served with the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the Ministry of Trades. In 1946 Simon joined the Labour Party, believing it now shared his own goals concerning social reform. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Simon of Wythenshawe in 1947.
Simon’s last major public post was a five-year term as chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1947-52. He was also for many years a member of the court and council of the University of Manchester. He died in Withington on 3 October 1960.
Simon’s paper at the Balliol College conference in 1921 was a lengthy one. He begins by taking aim at guild socialism, then being advocated as a kind of third way between private capitalism and full state socialism. Simon argues that guild socialism cannot work, in large part because workers lack the education and experience to take control of industry and manage large companies. He does advocate greater worker participation in the form of works committees which will allow workers to air grievances and settle disputes, but he does not believe these can play any meaningful role in higher level management. The present system is imperfect, he argues, but why replace it with another that is more imperfect still?
Major works
A City Council from Within, 1926.
The Anti-Slum Campaign, 1933.
Rebuilding Britain: A Twenty-Year Plan, 1945.
Bibliography
Jones, B., ‘Simon, Ernest Emil Darwin’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Stocks, M., Ernest Simon of Manchester, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963.
Original Source
‘Can the workers share in the control of industry?’, 16 April 1921, Balliol College