Roger Simon, 2nd Baron Simon of Wythenshawe

Roger Simon, 2nd Baron Simon of Wythenshawe (16 October 1913 – 14 October 2002) was a British solicitor and left wing journalist and political activist. He was one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

The elder son of Ernest, first Lord Simon and Shena, Lady Simon, he inherited the title on his father's death in 1960. Although he never renounced the title, he did not use it, either.

After Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, where he was a contemporary of Benjamin Britten and Donald Maclean, Simon read economics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While there he was invited to join the Political Economy Club run by John Maynard Keynes. At one of the club's meetings, Piero Sraffa, a friend of Antonio Gramsci, advised him to read Karl Marx, and Simon soon joined the Communist Party, as his brother Brian Simon had done a year before.

In 1935, he qualified as a solicitor, and from 1942 to 1945 he served in the Royal Signals. He went for officer training at Catterick, where he met the Marxist Arnold Kettle, later a close friend.

From 1945 to 1946, he taught law at Welbeck Abbey, where soldiers with three years' service could have a month's free education. At Welbeck he met Edmund Penning-Rowsell, another communist who became a lifelong friend.

From 1946 to 1958, he worked for Ealing Borough Council as a solicitor. In 1958 he joined the Labour Research Department, becoming secretary from 1965 to 1977. He published many pamphlets and articles on economic issues. His last ten years were devoted to green politics.

He was a member of the William Morris Society.

References

• Pat Devine, Obituary, The Guardian, 25 October 2002.

Publications

• Local Councils and the Citizen, Stevens & Sons (1948)
• The British State, Lawrence & Wishart (1958) (co-authored, under the pseudonyms James Harvey & Katherine Hood)
• Light on the City, LRD Publications (1962)
• An Introduction To Gramsci's Political Thought (1982)
• Introducing Marxism, Communist Party (1986)