Simon Hales-Owen

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Simon Hales-Owen is a London solicitor who acts upon occasion for the Duke of Taunton and the Taunton Estates.

Early life
Simon Hales-Owen was born in Romsley, Worcs, at the home of his maternal grandparents, on 21 May 1965, the third son of Saul Hales-Owen, a Redditch high street solicitor, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Poynings. Simon Hales-Owen lived in Redditch as a boy.

He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, as his prepper, and then at Eton, where he was surveyed with lofty dismissal by the future Duke of Taunton (the Charles, Marquess of Templecombe) and HH the Nawab of Hubli, who distrusted any boy, let alone one four forms or blocks beneath them, who was neither a wet bob nor (preferably) a dry bob, but merely a slack bob who neither rowed nor played cricket, and whose sole interest appeared to be tuck. (The future Duke observed that ‘any boy too lazy for beaglin’’ was ‘too lazy to live’.) Despite this view (one taken also of a future Conservative PM) from the dizziest heights On High (Templecombe and the Nawab being ornaments of Pop and the 1st XI), ‘Hales-Owen S’ turned out to be an accomplished pupil, and one considered by his fellows, with a mixture of admiration and unease, as being already seasoned in craft and slyness. They and the masters alike noted the future Duke’s prophecy that he should, doubtless, ‘become a Kingsman or some damned thing, and end up a limb of the Law – or of the Devil’: which prophecy Simon Hales-Owen openly revelled in fulfilling.

He indeed went up, upon leaving school, to read Law at Cambridge: and, as prophesied, at King’s at that.

Career
Having done very well indeed in his Solicitors’ Final Examination – his generation antedated the LPC – Mr Hales-Owen was offered, and accepted, a training contract with the Silver Circle firm of solicitors Cosset & Long, once parodied by Dickens: much to his father’s satisfaction and relief, the elder two Hales-Owen sons being already entrenched in their positions at the family firm in Redditch. In the course of his trainee period, he was twice called upon to instruct Mr Pemberton Molyneaux (now Sir Pemberton Molyneaux QC), whose style was a match for his own: in the Duke’s characterisation, ‘sinuous and serpentine: the fine Italian hand’. Aided by an undeniable presence and something of the air of a Renascence bravo and conspirator, Simon Hales-Owen was confidently expected to rise very high, within Cosset & Long and within the profession. It was also generally anticipated that he should, when the opportunity arose, avail himself of a right of audience when and wherever he might. This was not to be.

The qualities – and the faults: such as vanity, the ‘pride of the Devil’ (according to Cosset & Long’s then managing partner, Timothy Anstey), and ambition – which his peers ascribed to Simon Hales-Owen, fairly or not, led him instead to strike out on his own within seven years’ time after fully qualifying, he opening offices on Malet Court off Fetter Lane in 1990. In this, he was encouraged by Pemberton Molyneaux, and assured by an aloof and amused Charles Templecombe (as he yet was), who realised that the character Mr Hales-Owen had for too-great cleverness and a certain flexibility – always within the confines of legal propriety – made him useful for matters of business with which the traditional ducal solicitors, the reserved and highly conventional firm of Watkins Dod Gorton, were ill-suited. As the Duke has said in another context, Int Corps officers are not fastidious as to tools and tactics.

He and his practice have flourished since, with the Taunton Estate as a primary client in matters for which His Grace does not use Watkins Dod Gorton; and Mr Hales-Owen is regarded, somewhat jocularly, as Sir Pemberton Molyneaux’ pet solicitor. His Grace has his own opinion as regards that.

Personal life
Mr Hales-Owen’s outside interests are sailing and Dickens; he is also a celebrated gourmet, but trains devotedly to keep his figure. He is divorced.