Florence Simpson

Florence Simpson

Dame Florence Edith Victoria Simpson, DBE (9 October 1874 – 5 September 1956), née Way, later Leach, was the senior female British army officer during World War I and Controller in Chief, later President, Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (formerly the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps).

The daughter of Colonel Wilfred FitzAlan Way and his wife, Henrietta Mary (née Ross), she married firstly on 3 December 1895, Captain (later Brigadier-General) Burleigh Leach. They divorced in 1920. She married secondly, Ernest Percy Simpson, a widower with two daughters in 1922. There were no children from either marriage. Her second husband died in 1925.