Sir John Simeon, 3rd Baronet (5 February 1815 - 21 May 1870) was a British politician and naval officer. He was the eldest son of Sir Richard Simeon, 2nd Baronet

Sir Richard Simeon, 2nd Baronet

Sir Richard Godin Simeon, 2nd Baronet was an English Liberal Party politician.He was elected at the 1832 general election as the Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight, a new constituency which had been created by the Reform Act 1832...

, and initially pursued a naval career before being returned for the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight (UK Parliament constituency)

Isle of Wight is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Created by the Great Reform Act for the 1832 general election, it covers the whole of the Isle of Wight and elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post voting system.-...

 in 1847 as a Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 Member of Parliament.

In 1851 he converted to Catholicism, and resigned hs seat in Parliament through appointment as Steward of the Manor of Northstead on 5 May 1851,

"out of a delicate instinct of honour towards those who had elected him while he was a member of the Anglican Church — believing that he had no right to suppose them to be indifferent to the change he had made."

He was elected again for the same constituency in 1865, for a time serving as the only Roman Catholic Member of Parliament from an English constituency.

His last political act, on 8 April 1870, was to speak in Parliament against a measure proposed by Charles Newdigate Newdegate

Charles Newdigate Newdegate

Charles Newdigate Newdegate was a British Conservative politician.-Early life:He was the only son of Charles Parker Newdigate Newdegate of Harefield Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex, and his wife, Maria Boucherett, of Lincolnshire. He was educated at Eton College, King's College London, and Christ...

 for the state inspection of convents, despite being seriously ill at the time. Bursting a blood-vessel in his throat, he set off on a journey to Switzerland to recover his health but died en route while in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

.