Martin Sigismund Eduard von Simson (10 November 1810 – 2 May 1899) was a German jurist and distinguished liberal politician of the Kingdom of Prussia and German Empire, who served as President of the Frankfurt Parliament as well as the first President of the German Parliament and of the Imperial Court. He was ennobled by Kaiser Frederick III in 1888. Education Eduard Simson was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, in a Jewish family. The family converted to Protestantism in 1823. After the usual course at the Gymnasium of his native town, he entered its university in 1826 as a student of jurisprudence, and specially of Roman law. He continued his studies at Berlin and Bonn, and, having graduated doctor juris, attended lectures at the École de Droit in Paris. Returning to Königsberg in 1831 he established himself as a Privatdozent in Roman law, becoming two years later extraordinary, and in 1836 ordinary, professor in the faculty of the university. National Assembly Like many other distinguished German jurists, pari passu with his professorial activity, Simson followed the judicial branch of the legal profession, and, passing rapidly through the subordinate stages of auscultator and assessor, became adviser (Rath) to the Landgericht in 1846. In this year he stood for the representation of Königsberg in the National Assembly at Frankfurt am Main, and on his election was immediately appointed secretary, and in the course of the same year became successively its vice-president and president. Frederick William IV In Berlin on 3 April 1849, Simson appeared in his capacity of president at the head of a deputation of the Frankfurt Parliament to announce to King Frederick William IV his election as German Emperor by the representatives of the people. The king, either apprehensive of a rupture with the Austrian Empire, or fearing detriment to the prerogatives of the Prussian crown should he accept this dignity at the hands of a democracy, refused the offer. Simson, bitterly disappointed at the outcome of his mission, resigned his seat in the Frankfurt Parliament, but in the summer of the same year was elected deputy for Königsberg in the popular chamber of the Prussian Landtag. Here he soon made his mark as one of the best orators in that assembly. A member of the short-lived Erfurt Parliament of 1850, he was again summoned to the presidential chair. Prussian Landtag On the dissolution of the Erfurt assembly, Simson retired