Esther Simpson correspondence and papers

Esther Simpson was born in Leeds, as Esther Sinovitch, in 1903. She was gifted musically and already had medals and certificates in violin playing from Leeds College of Music before she entered the University of Leeds in 1921. She graduated from Leeds with first class honours in French with German in 1924 and took a diploma in education in the following year. Soon after taking her diploma she turned from teaching to secretarial work in Europe. She was living in Geneva in 1933 when she received and accepted an offer of employment in England as secretary to the newly-formed Academic Assistance Council (later, the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning) whose purpose was to help resettle scholars who had fled from totalitarian regimes, initially Nazi Germany. In the same year she changed her name to Simpson. Her employment with the AAC developed into a vocation. She was awarded an OBE in 1956 and after her retirement in 1966 she received honorary doctorates from London (1984) and Leeds (1989). She died on 19 November 1996.

Gift of Dr Esther Simpson, 1990-1992