Margaret Simey

Margaret Bayne Todd (4 January 1906 – 27 July 2004) was a political and social campaigner born in Glasgow but is usually more associated with Liverpool, settling there in the 1920s and becoming the first woman to achieve a degree in sociology.

She married Thomas Spensley Simey, a political scientist at Liverpool University; he was later awarded a life peerage by Harold Wilson, but she did not use the title "Lady Simey".

She became well known as a left-wing campaigner in Liverpool, served as a Liverpool City Councillor from 1963, was then a councillor on the now defunct Merseyside County Council from 1974, and was chair of the Merseyside County Police Committee at the time of the Toxteth riots in 1981, frequently coming into conflict with the then Chief Constable, Kenneth Oxford and gaining a reputation for being outspoken about topics in which she believed.

[1] Representing the inner-city Granby Ward, she was well aware of the local tensions which led to the Toxteth Riots; over the preceding decade, the use of police powers to stop and search had increased, and the police had recently begun to close nightclubs associated with crime.

Simey had foreseen that this would cause tension and had predicted that the closure of one club in particular would lead to a riot.