John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, was born on February 28, 1873, in Manchester, Lancashire, England.

He was a British judge and a Liberal politician. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh and Wadham College, Oxford. After graduating in 1896, he was elected Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. In 1898, he won the Barstow Law Scholarship and was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1899. He was appointed a judge on the Western Circuit in 1908. In 1906, he had been elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Walthamstow, Essex. He soon became a Member of the Cabinet and served as Secretary of State for Home Affairs (1915-1916). He returned as MP for Spen Valley, 1922-1940. A speech he made in the House of Commons contributed markedly to the collapse of the miners' strike in 1926. In 1931, he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and later Secretary of State for Home Affairs, 1935-1937. Simon was also Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1937-1940. He served on several government commissions and was Chairman of the Indian Statutory Commission, 1927-1930, which produced a historic report on the working of the 1919 Act concerning the government of India. In 1940, he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Simon and became Lord Chancellor (1940-1945). Simon remained active in the House of Lords and as a senior judge on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He wrote a well-regarded practitioners' text “Simon on Income Tax” in 1948. His other publications include his memoirs, “Retrospect” (1952) and “Income Tax” (5 vols., 1950).

In 1899, he married Ethel Mary Venables (1872–1902), and in 1917, he remarried Kathleen Manning (c. 1863-1955). He died on January 11, 1954, in London, England.

Beatrice V. Simon received her B.A. in 1943 and her M.A. 1950 from McGill University. She was Assistant Chief Librarian at McGill University. In the late 1930s Miss Simon carried out a survey of medical libraries in London, England. In 1963, with the support of the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges, she published Library Support of Medical Education and Research in Canada, Report of a survey of the medical college libraries of Canada, together with suggestions for improving and extending medical library service at local, regional, and national levels. This survey of Canadian medical school libraries arose from a meeting in Ottawa in February, 1962 attended by the librarians of twelve medical schools, the executive of the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges, officers of the Medical Research Council, the National Library and the National Research Council Library. In 1959 at the Annual conference of the Medical Library Association in Toronto, Doreen Fraser, Biomedical Librarian at the University of British Columbia, had presented a paper entitled "Canadian Medical School Libraries and their Collections." (M. Doreen E. Fraser. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1960 April; 48(2): 149–161.) In 1962 twelve and later thirteen medical school libraries formed themselves into the Committee on Medical Science Libraries of the Canadian Library Association – Association Canadienne de Bibliothèques. The Committee worked closely with the ACMC and the MLA. Issues raised in the Fraser presentation and the desire to establish a cross-Canada medical library network to provide adequate library support for medical education and research led to the establishment of this national survey, popularly known as the Simon Report. In 1969 Beatrice Simon received the Special Libraries Association Award in recognition of her achievement in the field of Librarianship.