Katherine Ashton Simpson

Katherine Ashton Simpson (known as Kate A. Pearce Simpson; after marriage, Kate A. Pearce-Ellis; (1858–1951) was a British author, poet, and painter.^[1]

Simpson published several books and poetry collections. A number of her poems were set to music by her sister Florence Eva Simpson (Elva Lorence; 1865–1923) as songs which were published and widely performed. They also collaborated on several operettas; the comic opera Nanette or The Mermaid's Bubble (1896)^[2] and A Peep into Flowerland or Terra Flora.^[3] Simpson's poems were also set to music by the composers Frederick Crouch^[4] and George Kennedy Christie, the later being Florence Eva Simpson's husband.^[5]

Simpson was also a trained painter. Her picture of her sister Florence Eva Simpson was exhibited and at the Berwick Exhibition in Newcastle-on-Tyne.^[6] The painting is now in the collection Touchstones Rochdale gallery, run by Rochdale Arts & Heritage Service.^[7] Simpson exhibited several paintings in the painting at the Royal Scottish Academy.^[8] These included her painting 'The Artist's Little Model'.^[9]

After which marriage in 1906, Simpson wrote her poetry and journalism under the name of Kate A. Pearce-Ellis.^[10] However, she continued to write as Kate a. Pearce Simpson for the short stories she continued to publish in newspapers across the country – including in the Bristol Times & Mirror,^[11] The Weekly Northern Gazette,^[12] and in the Stalybridge Reporter.^[13]

Simpson became a leading figure in social welfare organisations and a sought-after speaker on a range of subjects.^[14]

Simpson was born in Fairburn, near Ledsham, West Yorkshire, on 8 March 1858.^[15] One of 14 children, her parents were the Reverend Michael Henry Simpson (1816–1888) and his wife Elizabeth, née Hendrick (1806–1905).^[16] She was baptised by her father on 5 April 1858.^[17]

On her mother's side, she was part of an old north country family, being a great-great-granddaughter of Lord Lever of Alkrington Hall.^[18] Her father went on to be Vicar of the Church of St Philip and St James, Tow Law, County Durham, between 1862 and 1888.^[19]

Simpson and her siblings grew up at the Vicarage in Tow Law.^[20] Her youngest sister, Alice Pickering (1860–1939), became a tennis player who twice reached the final of the Wimbledon Championship.^[21]

She was married in Darlington on 18 September 1906 to John Pearce Ellis (1838–1925), a farmer 20 years her senior, after which her writings were often created under the name of Kate A. Pearce-Ellis.^[22] After her marriage she and her husband lived at Longford House, in Longford, Gloucestershire.^[23] They attended St Mary the Virgin's Church, Hartpury, where Simpson became churchwarden, and later St. Matthew's Church Twigworth.^[24] John Pearce-Ellis died in 1925 and she died at Longford House on 24 December 1951. She was buried with her husband in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin's Church Hartpury.^[25]