Jack Simons (academic)
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Professor Jack Simons |
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| Born |
Harold Jack Simons February 1, 1907 Riversdale, Cape Province, South Africa |
| Died | July 22, 1995 (aged 88) Cape Town, South Africa |
| Nationality | South African |
| Spouse(s) | Ray Esther Alexander |
| Children | Mary Simons Tanya Barben Johan Simons |
| Academic background | |
| Education | PhD |
| Alma mater | London School of Economics |
| Thesis title | Crime and Punishment in South Africa with Comparative Studies |
| Thesis year | 1935 |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Zambia University of Manchester University of Cape Town |
Jack Simons (1 February 1907 – 22 July 1995) was a South African university academic and anti-apartheid activist.
Harold Jack Simons was born in 1907 in Riversdale, Cape Province to father Hyman Simons, who had come to South Africa with Cecil Rhodes and Gertrude Morkel a teacher. He matriculated in 1924 and joined a law firm as an articled clerk, qualifying with a law certificate. In 1926 he moved to Pretoria were he joined the civil service in the Auditor General's and Justice Department. Studying part-time, he obtained a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of South Africa and with a scholarship obtained a Master of Political Science degree from the Transvaal University College in 1931, the subject being the South African penal system. Obtaining a further scholarship, he attended the London School of Economics in 1932 and obtained a PhD in 1935, its subject compared the penal systems in South Africa, Kenya and South Rhodesia. During his travels in Europe he would see the rise of Fascism, Nazism as well as the Black Shirts in the United Kingdom, a civil war in Spain, organised Marxist study groups and would later join the British Communist Party in 1933.
He returned to South Africa in 1937 and joined as a lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in Native Law and Administration and would later change the departments name to the Department of Comparative African Government and Law. In 1937 he was introduced to the African National Congress (ANC) when he attended their national conference. He and his future wife as well as Eli Weinberg would help revive the South African Communist Party (SACP) after years of turmoil and expulsions from the party in the early thirties and which would see the appointment of Moses Kotane as its general-secretary in 1939. In 1941, he married Ray Alexander who had introduced him to trade unionism.
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