Julian M. Simpson

Julian Malcolm Simpson (born December 1970) is an English independent scholar, writer, and historian of migration and healthcare. He is best known for the book Migrant Architects of the NHS: South Asian doctors and the reinvention of British general practice (1940s–1980s), published by Manchester University Press, and which formed the basis of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP's) exhibition commemorating the 70th anniversary of the NHS.

Simpson spent much of his childhood in West Africa where he attended school in Gabon, with intermittent trips to North Tyneside. He completed his education in France and studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and the École supérieure de journalisme de Lille.

He later worked for a number of years as a journalist, broadcaster, campaigner and policy advisor, before going on to study history and complete his PhD on "South Asian doctors and the development of general practice in Great Britain (c.1948-c.1983)". He has since continued to publish articles, book chapters and books on topics surrounding medical migration and healthcare.

Early life and education Julian Simpson was born in the North East of England in December 1970, with his ancestry having roots in Ireland, Germany and the Indian subcontinent. His early education was in France, following which he attended high school at the Lycée National Léon Mba in Gabon, with intermittent summer holidays back in Howdon, North Tyneside, where he first witnessed South Asian migrant doctors in general practice in an industrial working-class region.

Upon return to France, he completed his secondary education He later worked as a spokesman for the Scottish Refugee Council in the early 2000s.

He illustrated how his background, upbringing and experiences of hostilities to migrants led him to believe that a "lack of historical awareness was at least partially at the root of such attitudes" He was subsequently appointed lead researcher on a CLAHRC (Collaboration for Applied Health Research and Care) Greater Manchester project, where he worked on access to general practice in the NHS and its connectedness to past official policies.

Simpson specialises in the history of the National Health Service, migration history, oral history, and history and policy, and is a member of the board of the UK Oral History Society.

He is also the co-editor (with Eureka Henrich of the University of Hertfordshire) of History, Historians and the Immigration Debate: Going Back to Where We Came From. This volume, published by Palgrave Macmillan (2018) is a series of essays by immigration historians who relate their work to contemporary policy controversies around migration. It includes contributions by leading historians of immigration, Donna Gabaccia, Leo Lucassen and Gérard Noiriel.

Selected publications Books Migrant Architects of the NHS: South Asian doctors and the reinvention of British general practice (1940s–1980s), Manchester University Press, February 2018. History, Historians and the Immigration Debate: Going Back to Where We Came From (with Eureka Henrich), Palgrave Macmillan, October 2018.

Book chapter "Providing "Special" Types of Labour and Exerting Agency: How Migrant Doctors have Shaped the United Kingdom's National Health Service", in Laurence Monnais & David Wright (Eds.) (2016) Doctors Beyond Borders: The Transnational Migration of Physicians in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 208–229. (with Stephanie Snow and Aneez Esmail) .

Papers .