[16] Along with Isaacs, Simon represented the Board of Trade at the public inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912; their close questioning of witnesses helped to prepare the way for improved maritime safety measures.

Asquith thought that Simon had organised "a conclave of malcontents" (Lloyd George, Reginald McKenna, Samuel, Charles Hobhouse and Beauchamp).

[3] McKenna and Walter Runciman also opposed conscription but for different reasons: they thought that it would weaken British industry and wanted Britain to concentrate her war effort on the Royal Navy and supporting the other Allies with finance.

[22] In August 1916, Simon became chairman of the Royal Commission on the Arrest... and Subsequent Treatment of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Thomas Dickson and Patrick James McIntyre.

[22] Simon proved his patriotism by serving as an officer on Trenchard's staff in the Royal Flying Corps[3] for about a year, starting in the summer of 1917.

Although Asquith, who had lost his seat, remained leader of the party, Lloyd George was elected chairman of the Liberal MPs by 29 votes to 9.

A few days later he was answered by Labour’s Sir Henry Slesser, who argued that a strike was only illegal if it could be proven to be a seditious conspiracy against the state.

[36][3] Upon the commission's arrival in Bombay in February 1928, it was immediately met with a hartal and protestors holding black flags and banners reading "Simon Go Back" (coined by Yusuf Meherally) involving prominent Indian political leaders such as Lala Lajpat Rai and Tanguturi Prakasam.

The protests erupted due to the lack of Indian representation on the commission, with the group composed of seven all-British Members of Parliament.

[37] His personality was already something of an issue: Neville Chamberlain wrote of him to the Viceroy of India Lord Irwin (12 August 1928): "I am always trying to like him, and believing I shall succeed when something crops up to put me off".

Simon attracted particular opprobrium for his speech to the General Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva on 7 December 1932 in which he failed to denounce Japan unequivocally.

[43] The British historian David Dutton wrote that some of the attacks on Simon's handling of the Japanese conquest of Manchuria were not fair in the sense that everything is put down to Simon's supposed personal weaknesses rather than to the so-called Ten Year Rule instituted in 1919 by the War Secretary Winston Churchill which stated that British defence spending was to be based on the assumption that there would be no major war in the next ten years.

[44] As a result of the Ten Year Rule, Britain did not have sufficient military forces to face Japan, most notably as the naval base at Singapore, begun in 1921, was still under construction.

[44] Simon's tendency to equivocate with regard to Manchuria and his suggestions that more research was needed to establish whether Japan had committed aggression or not was a way of covering up the fact that Britain was not capable of fighting a major war in 1931.

[45] The historian A. L. Rowse, who belonged to the "guilty men" school of historiography and who tended to be very harsh in his writings towards Simon, conceded that this claim that Simon rejected American offers in 1931-1932 to take joint action against Japan was a myth, apparently invented by American historians to explain why the United States was not more forceful in responding to Japan's aggression.

In 1933 and late 1934, Simon was being criticised by both Austen and Neville Chamberlain as well as by Eden, Lloyd George, Nancy Astor, David Margesson, Vincent Massey, Runciman, Jan Smuts and Churchill.

[50] Simon reported after his meeting in the Reich Chancellery that Hitler's foreign policy was "very dangerous for the peace of Europe" and the results might be "terrible beyond conception".

[51] However, Simon stated that thinking along these lines was "pretty hopeless" and resolved to keep to press for Germany to return to the World Disarmament Conference, which had abjured in 1934, and the League of Nations.

During Simon's tenure of the Foreign Office, British defence strength was at its lowest point of the interwar period, which severely limited his freedom of action.

[61] Two days after the event, the Labour Party Annual Conference denounced Sir John Simon for not banning the march and articulated a need for legislation.

[62] While the ensuing Public Order Act (1936) did successfully restrict politically extremist movements, it was nevertheless criticised for handing significant powers to the police to determine the routes of marches and processions.

[62] The Public Order act's legacy remains mixed and its authorship is contested,[63] but records show that Simon did commend the bill to the house.

In the autumn of 1938, he led the Cabinet to Heston Airport to wish him God speed on his flight to meet Hitler, and he helped to persuade Chamberlain to make the "high" case for Munich: that he had achieved a lasting peace, rather than that he had only limited potential damage.

[67] On 2 September 1939, Simon led a deputation of ministers to see Chamberlain to insist for Britain to honour her guarantee to Poland and go to war if Hitler did not withdraw.

Archibald Sinclair, the leader of the "official" Liberal Party, said that for over seven years, Simon had been "the evil genius of British foreign policy".

[69] In April 1940, he rejected John Maynard Keynes' idea of a forced loan, a tax disguised as a compulsory purchase of government securities.

As Lord Chancellor, he delivered important judgements on the damages due for death caused by negligence and on how the judge ought to direct the jury in a murder trial if a possible defence of manslaughter arose.

[72] In May 1945, after the end of the wartime coalition, Simon continued as Lord Chancellor but was not included in the Cabinet of the short-lived Churchill caretaker ministry.

[70] Although he had won plaudits for his legal skills as Lord Chancellor, Clement Attlee declined to appoint him to the British delegation at the Nuremberg War Trials and told him bluntly in a letter that Simon's role in the prewar governments made it unwise.

[3] Her social gaucheness and inability to play the part of a great lady caused embarrassment on the Simon Commission in the late 1920s, and Neville Chamberlain found her "a sore trial".