Robert Simpson (3 July 1923 – 8 April 1997) was a unionist politician in Northern Ireland.
[1] A strong support of Terence O'Neill's reforms, Simpson was appointed briefly as Additional Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister, and then as the first Minister for Community Relations in late 1969.
[2] He resigned from the freemasons and from the Orange Order in an attempt to appear impartial.
In the role, he organised a series of dinner parties with attendees from both nationalist and unionist backgrounds, and through these developed a friendship with Seamus Heaney.
[3] Simpson spent the remainder of his life writing on medicine, agriculture and travel, developing an arboretum and organising the Ballymena Music Festival.