Esther Simpson

Many of the academic refugees Esther Simpson helped rescue are well remembered. But who was she and why has history forgotten her?

This is the story of Esther Simpson, a woman whose dedication to the cause of freedom in science and learning left an indelible mark on the cultural and intellectual landscape of the modern world.

Esther Simpson - Tess to her friends - devoted her life to resettling academic refugees, whom she thought of as her family. By the end of her life, Tess could count among her 'children' sixteen Nobel Prize winners, eighteen Knights, seventy-four fellows of the Royal Society, thirty-four fellows of the British Academy.

From a humble upbringing in Leeds to Russian immigrant parents, Simpson took on secretarial roles that saw her move to London, then Vienna and finally Geneva. But when Hitler came to power she found her calling and joined the Academic Assistance Council for a salary that paid a third of what she was previously earning. Her work over more than five decades seeking refuge for many thousands of displaced academics worldwide had a profound impact on twentieth-century science, philosophy, philology, architecture and art history. Her 'children' had made a major contribution to allied victory in World War Two.

For a woman who befriended so many and so eminent 'children' surprisingly little is known of her. This book is a study of Esther Simpson as a largely unknown historical figure: who she was and how she lived, what moved her to take up and never to relinquish her calling, her impact on the world, and the historical context that helped shape her achievements.