Sir John Simeon, 3rd Baronet

Who was Sir John Simeon, 3rd Baronet?

Sir John Simeon, 3rd Baronet was a British politician and naval officer.

Simeon was born on the Isle of Wight in 1815. He was the eldest son of Sir Richard Simeon, 2nd Baronet and his wife Louisa Edith Barrington, the oldest daughter of Sir Fitzwilliam Barrington, 10th Baronet. He received his education at Christ Church, Oxford, from where he graduated with a BA in 1837.

His first marriage was on 26 Nov 1840 to Jane Maria Baker, daughter of Sir Frederick Francis Baker, 2nd Baronet. Sir John Simeon, 4th Baronet and Sir Edmund Charles Simeon, 5th Baronet were sons from this marriage. His wife died in 1860, and he remarried in the following year to the Honourable Catherine Dorothea Colville, a sister of Charles Colville, 1st Viscount Colville of Culross.

He initially pursued a naval career before being returned for the Isle of Wight in 1847 as a Liberal Member of Parliament. On 27 March 1848, he became a member of the Canterbury Association and immediately joined the management committee. The object was to create an Anglican settlement in New Zealand, which happened with the Canterbury Region, with Christchurch as its capital. Together with Lord Lyttelton, Lord Richard Cavendish and Edward Gibbon Wakefield, he guaranteed ₤15,000 to the Canterbury Association in April 1850, which saved it from financial collapse.