The Story of the Bow
July 1977
Compiled with material from the Simon Archery Collection
The core of the Museum’s collection was donated in 1946 by Ingo Simon, a life-long researcher into the development of the bow, and a skilled and dedicated archer.
His flight-shot in 1914 of 462 yards was a world record until 1933. He died in 1964, and his widow Erna, herself an accomplished archer and Lady World Champion in 1937, endowed a Trust in 1970 prior to her death in 1973, for the purpose of conserving and developing the collection.
The Simon Legacy
After her husband died in 1964, the collection was maintained solely by Erna. It was Erna herself who arranged to donate around half of her and her husband’s joint collection to Manchester Museum in 1946, and then at her bequest, after she died in 1973, the Museum received the rest. In 1970, she established the Simon Archery Trust in order that the collection would be maintained, added to, and to ensure that collection could be stored and conserved at Manchester Museum, and held in trust for the access and benefit of the public.
