Talk:John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon

message: Why is "Allsebrook" in the article title? Everything I've read refers to him (pre peerage at least) as (Sir) John Simon. Timrollpickering 20:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Allsebrook in title

message: We are told that Viscountess Simon was an abolitionist. What did she seek to abolish? Ausseagull (talk) 07:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Slavery. I've added some info.  --Erp (talk) 06:19, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Abolitionist

message: Surely as a senior and successful barrister he would have been a KC? The David Dutton biog would be the place to look, but I don't have it to hand.Paulturtle (talk) 17:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, 1908 according to http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U242967/SIMON?index=5&results=QuicksearchResults&query=0 Graemp (talk) 20:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  KC 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: What on earth is this sentence supposed to mean: "Simon served as Foreign Secretary under MacDonald, the highlights of his tenure of office being the repudiation by Germany, under its new chancellor, Adolf Hitler; of the League of Nations; of Disarmament efforts and of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria." Are those semi-colons meant to be commas; i.e. it's talking about "the repudiation by Germany ... of the League of Nations, of Disarmament efforts and of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria"? And in what mad alternative universe can incidents and concerns such as those have been regarded as "highlights" within a British politician's career? Was the intention just to say "Major international issues to arise during his term of office included ..."? I have added a "clarify" tag. GrindtXX (talk) 00:04, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I should think the term "highlight" was intended ironically.Paulturtle (talk) 00:48, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: *Roy Jenkins (in his essay in "The Chancellors") states that Simon was an only child; his ODNB article by David Dutton states that he had a sister. I have put the latter in the article and footnoted the former, as it seems more likely to be correct.
*Roy Jenkins states that both Simon and FE Smith started at Oxford in October 1891, but the ODNB states that Simon graduated in 1896 in Greats - which is normally a four year course, so he should have started in 1892. Lurking at the back of my mind is some memory of how John Campbell in his classic biog of FE Smith, recalls somebody (?Simon) later writing in his memoirs about how he had seen FE Smith make a memorable speech at the Oxford Union, but that this was a classic example of old men forgetting (or in this case "remembering" things that he didn't actually see) as the supposed eyewitness had still been at school in Scotland at the time. Maybe Jenkins relied on Simon's memoirs why imply that he and FE Smith were exact contemporaries, whereas actually they were a year or two apart. (FE was born in 1872 but had spent a year or two at a Liverpool college before getting into Oxford iirc).
I read the Dutton biog of Simon and the Campbell biog of FE Smith about 25 years ago, and have a copy of Simon's memoirs, but they are all boxed up somewhere so I am not in a position to verify.Paulturtle (talk) 14:36, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible inaccuracies in Jenkins 

message: This article says "He headed the public inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912", referenced to "Jenkins 1999, p372". Our article British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic says the inquiry was overseen by Lord Mersey, and lists Simon among "other counsel" as representing the Board of Trade, referenced to the Titanic Inquiry Project. DuncanHill (talk) 14:56, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Have fixed this to match what David Dutton says, as his 1992 biog is the authoritative source on Simon.Paulturtle (talk) 05:54, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 23:54, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Titanic error? 

message: I have added a "citation needed" tag to the statement that the 2nd Lady Simon "was tactless and by the late 1930s had become a virtual alcoholic": it's probably from Jenkins, but it's somewhat POV, and I think needs a specific citation and perhaps a quotation. Her dedicated article (which is a bit hagiographical) gives no hint of either – but does say that she was "not well-liked by high society", which may provide a hint of context. GrindtXX (talk) 18:34, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Neither the ODNB article on Simon, nor that on Dame Kathleen Simon, suggest that she was an alcoholic. BTW, she wasn't the 2nd Lady Simon, as he didn't get his K until 1910, several years after his first wife died. DuncanHill (talk) 19:30, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorted. Like Sir John Anderson, Simon caused embarrassment by marrying "beneath himself". Her drinking problem is in both Jenkins and Dutton, who is the authoritative biographer. (I remember thinking that the article on Kathleen Simon needed some work doing on it, but I'm not volunteering - for a start I think she lied about her age and claimed to be at least a decade younger than she actually was). Normally I'd assume Roy Jenkins was just channelling Dutton but he was politically very well connected as a young man (son of a Labour MP) so Lady Simon's fondness for the bottle may have been common gossip in the 1930s and 1940s. As for the exact terminology used, there may somewhere in the medical or legal professions be a fine distinction between "drinking to excess" and "near alcoholic" but for practical purposes both are consistent with behavioural problems brought on by drinking more than was good for her. On a final note, I notice Neville Chamberlain's phrase about Simon being "much diminished" in 1939, and I wonder whether home problems might have had something to do with this, but that's just my speculation.Paulturtle (talk) 04:30, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1863/64 is what is given for her birth in the DNB though the entry says some reports give her age as being 8 or 9 years less (which would have made her first marriage in 1885 extremely young).  Do you think 1863/64 is wrong?  I agree there are certain vagaries about her early biography; for instance when did her first husband die?    --Erp (talk) 06:19, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

text: I think 1863/4 is probably right and she was about 21 when she married her first husband (maybe that's the age given on her marriage certificate or some other contemporary document, hence the uncertainty about the exact year). She would have been in her mid 50s by the time she married Sir John but had, I think, quietly dropped a decade or so by then.Paulturtle (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the 1863/64 date is due in part to her parents' marriage being on 17 February 1863.  Her first marriage was the 21 February 1885 to Thomas F. Manning of county Kerry (both from A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland by Bernard Burke, 1899, page 192).  Oddly enough I think she is the great granddaughter of the artist  Simon Jacques Rochard (DNB and the French wikipedia). The entry says her paternal grandmother is Eugenie Fannie Felicite daughter of Simon Jacques Rochard of London (her grandfather is Henry Robert Harvey).  There is also a marriage announcement (The Morning Post (London, England), Friday, April 18, 1834; Issue 19769) stating that on 17 April 1834 stating that Henry Robert Harvey nephew of the late Lord Brandon married Eugenia Fanny only daughter of Simon J. Rochard, Esq., of Regent-Street (which is where the artist worked).  This is original research so can't be used unless someone reliable has already done so (also it is a bit obscure though does explain why her middle name is Rochard). Simon Jacques Rochard does seem significant enough for his own English wikipedia article (several of his works illustrate other articles) --Erp (talk) 16:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  2nd Lady Simon