SIMON TOWNELEY

'Sir Simon Peter Edmund Cosmo William Towneley' was born in 1921 with the surname 'Koch de Gooreynd', the elder son of a Belgian father and an English mother (Priscilla Reyntiens), who were Roman Catholics. His father (Alexander Koch de Gooreynd) changed the family name prior to the birth of Towneley's younger brother, Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, the journalist. The brothers were raised Catholic, but did not attend denominational schools.
He assumed the and of 'Towneley', a recusant family, by royal license.
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. Although currently out of print (the most recent edition is dated 1968) it is still a fundamental text.
Simon Towneley was Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire from 1976–1996. He married Mary Fitzherbert-Brockholes, who was herself from a well-off recusant English Roman Catholic family. Mary Fitzherbert Towneley died in 2001 from cancer, aged 65. The couple had seven children; one son and six daughters.

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