Simon Towneley

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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 surname and arms of the Towneley, an old recusant family, by royal license.

Simon Towneley was Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire from 1976–1996. He was married to the late Mary Fitzherbert Towneley, who was from a 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.