Ernest Aldrich Simpson

Ernest Aldrich Simpson (May 6, 1895 – November 30, 1958) was a British shipping executive best known as the second husband of Wallis Simpson, who later would marry the former Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.

Background

Born in New York City, New York, and educated at Harvard, Simpson was briefly a captain in the Coldstream Guards during World War I. His father, Ernest Louis Simpson, was British; his mother, Charlotte Gaines, was American. She was a daughter of Royal Aldrich Gaines, a New York lawyer. Simpson renounced his United States citizenship as a young man and became a naturalized British citizen.

"In his younger years he was described as tall, with blue eyes, blond, curly hair, a neat blond moustache and a fastidious dresser," according to an article in The New York Times.

First marriage

His first wife was Dorothea Webb Dechert, the former wife of James F. Dechert, a daughter of Arthur Webb Parsons, and a great-granddaughter of Theophilus Parsons, a Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and a president of Harvard University. They were married in 1923 and divorced in 1928. They had one child, Audrey Simpson, a 1941 graduate of St. Margaret's School in Tappahannock, Virginia, who married firstly the American journalist Murray J. Rossant and secondly Edmund Hope Driggs III. Audrey Simpson Driggs, as she is now known, is currently listed in the alumni directory of St. Margaret's School with an email address in Canada. Simpson also had a stepdaughter by this marriage, Cynthia Dechert.

econd marriage

His second wife was Bessie Wallis Warfield (1896–1986), a former wife of Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr. and the only child of Teackle Wallis Warfield and his wife, Alice Montague. They were married in London, England, on July 21, 1928, and divorced on May 3, 1937. As his obituary in The New York Times noted, the publicity over his second wife's remarriage to the Duke of Windsor and her subsequent fame thrust him into the role of "the forgotten man." The two remained friends, however, the newspaper noted, with the now Duchess of Windsor sending him flowers when he was in hospital for surgery and Simpson offering advice and clarification when his former wife was working on her memoirs.

Third marriage

His third wife was Mary Huntemuller Kirk (1896–1941), former wife of Jacques Achille Louis Raffray, a French-born New York insurance broker, and a daughter of Henry Child Kirk, owner and manager of the Kirk Silversmith Co. of Baltimore, Maryland, and his wife, the former Edith Huntemuller. She is the sister of author E. Buckner Kirk Hollingsworth, who dedicated her book "Her Garden was Her Delight" to her memory. Hollingsworth is additionally the holder of the copyright of Mary Kirk Simpson's letters that reside in the Harvard archives. A girlhood friend of Wallis Warfield, she was a bridesmaid at Warfield's first wedding and introduced her to Ernest Simpson in 1925; she also was the other woman with whom Simpson took a hotel suite in Berkshire in order to give his wife, Wallis, evidence of adultery to so she could bring divorce proceedings against him. Ernest Simpson and Mary Raffray were married in the Diamond Jubilee ballroom of the Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Connecticut, on November 19, 1937, six months after the groom's divorce from Wallis Simpson and three weeks after the bride's divorce from Raffray. They had one son, who was born prematurely on September 29, 1939, and christened at the Guards Chapel of Wellington Barracks in London. In June 1940, the Simpsons sent their infant son to the United States to escape the war. However, a month before Mary's death he returned with her to England. No further official record of their son's current status has ever been substantiated, although several biographies of the Windsors say he lives in Jerusalem and has changed his last name to Soloman. Mary Simpson died of cancer on October 2, 1941, at the couple's home in Wiltshire, England.

Fourth marriage

His fourth wife was Avril Joy Mullens (1910–November 28, 1978), the former wife of Brigadier General Hugh Nugent Leveson-Gower, RA, a former wife of H.S.H. Prince George G. Imeretinsky, and the younger daughter of Sir John Ashley Mullens, of Manor House, Haslemere, Surrey, by his wife, Evelyne Maude Adamson. Simpson and Avril Leveson-Gower were married in London, England, on August 12, 1948. By this marriage he had one stepdaughter, Lucinda Gaye Leveson-Gower (born 1935, married Sir Spencer Le Marchant in 1955). Avril Simpson was killed in a car crash in Mexico.

Death

Simpson died in London, England of throat cancer.