Alice Simpson, née Want was one of nine children of Randolph and Harriette Want, who married in Sydney in 1839. Randolph Want (1811-1869), a solicitor, arrived in Australia in the late 1820s and served in the first Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. Alice married grazier Robert Percy Simpson in Sydney in 1857. Their eldest son, Edward Percy Simpson, was born in 1858 and followed two of his uncles into the legal profession, establishing the tradition followed by three generations of men in the Simpson family.