John Simon Gabriel Simmons
John Simon Gabriel Simmons OBE (8 July 1915 – 21 September 2005) was a British scholar of Slavonics. Born in Birmingham, he joined the library at Birmingham University as a boy in 1932 and began studying Russian in 1934. He graduated in 1937 with a BA in Spanish and Russian and stayed on as an assistant librarian while starting a doctoral project on the history of Russian printing, which World War II interrupted. On his first trip to Russia he met his wife, Fanny, whom he married in 1944.
After serving in the war and three more years at Birmingham, Simmons moved to Oxford to become librarian and lecturer in charge of Slavonic books—the post was created for him by his old tutor Konovalov. In August 1953 he travelled to Moscow to propose a book exchange with the Lenin Library, which brought thousands of valuable, out-of-print Russian publications to Oxford.
Simmons helped build up the Slavonic collections at the Taylorian and Bodleian Libraries and established the Bodleian’s only specialised Slavonic reading room. He believed these collections, along with Russian teachers recruited by Konovalov, Maurice Bowra, and Isaiah Berlin, helped make Oxford England’s premier centre for Slavonic studies. He remained a leading figure in the field until his death.
In 1974 he held the Sandars Readership in Bibliography at Cambridge University—the only substantial English-language history of Russian printing. In 1985 he formed The 4Cs Club, with the four ideas Conserve, Consider, Contribute, Co-operate. Invitations went to scholars who shared his outlook; the club grew to more than 200 members in 19 countries, and members received club ties (later, brooches for women) worn on important occasions.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:08 (CET).