Lena Margaret Ashwell, Lady Simson OBE (née Pocock; 28 September 1872 – 13 March 1957) was a British actress and theatre manager and producer, known as the first to organise large-scale entertainment for troops at the front, which she did during World War I.

She was born Lena Margaret Pocock'[1] on the Wellesley while anchored in the River Tyne at North Shields, at the time under her father's 'command' as a home for “boys 'unconvicted of crime' but under suspicion”.

In 1891, she debuted in The Pharisee, and in 1895 she appeared in King Arthur, by J. Comyns Carr, with Ellen Terry, Genevieve Ward and Henry Irving, all wearing costumes made by Ada Nettleship.

[2] She went on to appear in a number of Shakespeare productions, in Quo Vadis (1900), and as the lead in Mrs Dane's Defence (1900) and Leah Kleschna (1905).

In 1906, Ashwell starred in The Shulamite, a melodrama about a South African woman in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman.

Partly due to the influence of her acquaintance Princess Helena Victoria, and her connections to the YWCA, she was given permission to take a group of entertainers to the Western Front.

[9] Ashwell herself travelled to the front and became involved in fundraising and logistics of the concerts, as she believed in 'uplifting and therapeutic' power of music.

After some years the trustees allowed her a £500 grant for capital outlay after get good results of a survey of local councils.

[17] She married the royal obstetrician Sir Henry John Forbes Simson in 1908, who had the claim to fame of delivering both the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret.