In 1928 she accepted a job at the International Fellowship of Reconciliation in Vienna where she worked for a few years until being employed by the World Alliance of the YMCA in Geneva in 1933.

Simpson called herself a member of the Society of Friends,[5] understood the importance of assisting refugee scholars and was dedicated to her work.

[4] She believed her upbringing as a child of immigrants in Britain allowed her to be more critical, and therefore successful in her work[6] She was aware that refugee organisations were not able to do everything, but she wanted to help in any way that she could.

She said: "Music enriched my life by providing me with wonderful friends – meeting a musician was so often like a pebble cast in a pool whose ripples go on to eternity.

The AAC was set up to help academics fleeing from the Nazi regime by offering them grants and aiding them to find new employment around the world.

This included organizing support for these refugees and also lobbied for selective suspicion of those of German or Austrian origin now in Britain; many who had fled repression had skills of value to their new home country.

[5] In 1940, Simpson was responsible for drawing up a list of over 550 candidates who were being interned in Britain, and developing cases to support releasing them.

[9] One of the leading figures in studying the science of language, Otto Neurath was briefly interned at one of these centres in the British Isles.

Simpson would then make decisions over who to support, obtain references, and seek to place them at institutions mainly in the UK, Commonwealth and USA.

She organized and obtained finance for lecture tours to the United States and, according to personal accounts, they were often offered work immediately afterwards.

[16] This meant not only helping the survivors of the war find new homes but also advising the friends and family of the scholars who had not survived of their fate.

In 1944, Esther Simpson left the SPSL for a post as the assistant secretary at the government-sponsored Society for Visiting Scientists.

Many who had not receive distinctions had still contributed to knowledge, culture, education and learning in Britain, the United States, and other parts of the world.

She regularly had supper with Nikolaus Pevsner, who brought new perspectives on the UK's architectural heritage to scholars and the wider public.

Additionally, Ludwig Guttmann, who founded the Paralympics, and Max Perutz, the Nobel laureate molecular biologist, had correspondence with her.

[5] Not only did they raise enough money to buy her a flat in Belsize Park, London, but letters poured in as well from Australia, the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Israel and elsewhere, expressing gratitude and love.

[citation needed] Until her death, Esther Simpson would walk to the local shop every day to get a newspaper and The Times to cut out clippings of the work her "children" were doing around the world.

[7] She received an honorary membership at the Royal College of Physicians in Britain in 1991 and according to the Registrar at the time of appointment, he said: "the honour can seldom go to a more deserving person.