John Lionel Simonsen, 1884-1957

Abstract

John Lionel Simonsen was born in Levenshulme, Manchester, on 22 July 1884. His father, Lionel Michael Simonsen, was a merchant of Danish origin, who became a naturalized British subject. His mother, Anna Sophie, daughter of J. M. Bing of Copenhagen, had academic relations. Her brother was Professor of Medicine in the University of Copenhagen, and her uncle was Professor Carl Warburg, Professor of Literature in Gothenburg and later in Stockholm. Simonsen had one sister, his senior by two and a half years; it was generally supposed that one or both of his parents were of Jewish race. He married on 30 December 1913, Jannet Dick Hendrie (M.B., Ch.B., Edinb.), daughter of Robert Hendrie of Nairn. Lady Simonsen was at the time Superintendent of the Caste and Gosha Hospital, Madras. She was an exceptionally brilliant surgeon and during the first World War acted as Professor of Pathology at the Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi and later as head of the Malaria Research Station in the Simla Hills. The late Sir Harry Lindsay was a close friend of the Simonsens and wrote as follows: ‘I first met John Simonsen and his wife Jannet at Dehra Dun in 1920; our friendship was founded upon a joint interest in the future of the Indian lac industry and was cemented when Mrs Simonsen’s (as she then was) medical skill diagnosed an attack of influenza-cum-pneumonia, from which I was suffering when I joined them—a poor introduction to their hospitable house! However, they and the civil surgeon saw me through and it is no exaggeration to say that I owe my life to their skill and care.’ It may perhaps be anticipated and interpolated here that Simonsen had many later contacts and joint interests with Sir Harry Lindsay; Indian scientific affairs, Colonial Products, The Royal Society of Arts, of which he became a Fellow in 1943 with service on the Council from 1949 until his death.