Simon Archer (antiquary)

Sir Simon Archer (21 September 1581–before 4 June 1662) was an English antiquary and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640.

Archer was the eldest son of Andrew Archer (died 1629) of Umberslade Hall, near Tanworth in Arden, Warwickshire. Like his father, he expanded the family estate. He was knighted on 21 August 1624 at Warwick Castle.^[1]

In 1628 Archer was appointed High Sheriff of Warwickshire and, in April 1640, elected as Member of Parliament for Tamworth in the Short Parliament.^[2] He remained neutral in the English Civil War in 1642, but two of his sons fought on the Parliamentary side. From 1644 he himself served on the parliamentarian subcommittee for accounts in Warwickshire, which served as a curb on the more militant members of the county committee. In the 1650s, he was active as a Justice of the Peace in local government, and (unusually) retained this office after the Restoration, until his death.

His main claim to fame was as an antiquary, starting work on the history of his native county in the 1630s. William Dugdale was initially his assistant, but when Archer became more involved in public affairs, Dugdale took over the lead, resulting in the publication in 1656 of Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, with a fulsome acknowledgement to Archer's work in the epistle dedicatory.

He married Anne, daughter of Sir John Ferrers of Tamworth Castle. He was succeeded at Umberslade Hall by his second son Thomas. His great grandson, another Thomas was created Baron Archer in 1747.^[3]

References

• Richard Cust, ‘Archer, Sir Simon (1581–1662)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004) , accessed 8 Nov 2008.