James Mosley
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James Mosley (born 1935) is a retired librarian and historian whose work has specialised in the history of printing and letter design.{{cite web|last1=Barnes|first1=Paul|title=James Mosley: a life in objects|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/james-mosley-a-life-in-objects|website=Eye magazine|access-date=11 December 2015}}{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=2003 Individual Award: acceptance speech|url=https://printinghistory.org/awards/james-mosley/|publisher=APHA|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite book|last1=Howes|first1=Justin|author-link=Justin Howes|title=James Mosley|year=2004|publisher=Mark Batty|isbn=0972424059}}{{cite book|last1=Mosley|first1=compiled by Steven Tuohy; with two essays by James|title=James Mosley: librarian, St Bride Printing Library, London : a checklist of the published writings 1958-95|date=1995|publisher=Rampart Lions Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780902591608}}{{cite web |last1=Mosley |first1=James |title=Working Letters – an affectionate view of the vernacular |url=https://letterexchange.org/archive |publisher=Letter Exchange |access-date=11 May 2023}}
The main part of Mosley's career has been 42 years as Librarian of the St Bride Printing Library in London, where he curated and worked to expand the museum's large collection of printing and lettering materials, books and examples. This collection greatly expanded with the close of the metal type era, which saw many companies and printing shops selling off their equipment and archives.{{cite web|last1=Kinross|first1=Robin|title=Temple of Type|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/temple-of-type|website=Eye|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite web|title=Ornamented types: a prospectus|url=http://imimprimit.com/wp-content/uploads/Prospectus-all-cropped-small.pdf|publisher=imimprimit|access-date=12 December 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222083754/http://imimprimit.com/wp-content/uploads/Prospectus-all-cropped-small.pdf|archive-date=22 December 2015}} Mosley also expanded the library's collection of lettering and signs.{{cite web|last1=Young|first1=Timothy|title=London Dispatch: The St. Bride Foundation|url=http://designobserver.com/article.php?id=38830|website=Design Observer|access-date=12 December 2015}} He has also been a lecturer and professor at the University of Reading since 1964, and founded the British Printing Historical Society in that year.{{cite web|title=Professor James Mosley|url=https://www.reading.ac.uk/typography/about/Staff_list/j-m-mosley.aspx|publisher=University of Reading|access-date=11 December 2015}}{{cite web|title=James Mosley: Hyphen Press|url=https://hyphenpress.co.uk/authors/james_mosley|publisher=Hyphen Press|access-date=11 December 2015}}
Particular areas of focus of his career have been, in Britain, William Caslon, Vincent Figgins and Talbot Baines Reed, Eric Gill (with whose brother Evan he worked in the 1950s), and, in Europe, the Romain du Roi.{{cite journal|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Garamond, Griffo and Others: The Price of Celebrity|journal=Bibiologia|date=2006|url=http://www.libraweb.net/articoli.php?chiave=200608401&rivista=84|access-date=3 December 2015}}{{cite book|last1=Vervliet|first1=Hendrik D.L.|title=The palaeotypography of the French Renaissance. Selected papers on sixteenth-century typefaces. 2 vols.|date=2008|publisher=Koninklijke Brill NV|location=Leiden|isbn=9789004169821}}{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Talbot Baines Reed, typefounder and sailor|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/talbot-baines-reed-typefounder-and.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=12 December 2015}}
Education
Mosley grew up in Twickenham in south-west London, where he became interested in printing, before studying English at King's College, Cambridge, where he with Philip Gaskell, later also a historian of printing, operated a small hand-press as an amateur project in the college cellar.{{cite web|last1=Barker|first1=Nicolas|author-link=Nicolas Barker|title=Philip Gaskell: obituary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/sep/11/guardianobituaries.humanities|website=The Guardian|date=11 September 2001|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite journal|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Memories of an Apprentice Typefounder|journal=Matrix|volume=21|date=2001|pages=1–13}} During his time at university he worked with Eric Gill's brother Evan on sorting material for an exhibition on his work by Monotype, a printing equipment company with which Gill often collaborated.{{cite journal|title=Eric Gill: Monotype Recorder special issue|journal=Monotype Recorder|date=1958|volume=41|issue=3|url=http://www.metaltype.co.uk/downloads/mr/mr_41_3.pdf|access-date=6 November 2015}}
Career
After a brief period working at the type foundry Stevens Shanks, one of the last remaining in London, Mosley was hired at St. Bride as assistant librarian in 1956, becoming librarian in 1958.{{cite web|last1=Richardson|first1=Bob|title=The Mosley effect|date=5 May 2015|url=https://stbridefoundation.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/the-mosley-effect/|publisher=St. Bride Foundation|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite journal|title=Change at Oxford...and at St. Bride's|journal=Motif|issue=1|page=82}} As a writer, some of his most best-known articles are 'English Vernacular', on signpainting and lettering traditions,{{cite journal|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=English Vernacular|journal=Motif|date=1963|volume=11|pages=3–56}}{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=English vernacular (2006)|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/english-vernacular.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=21 October 2017}} 'The Nymph and the Grot', on the early development of sans-serif letters before they became adopted by printers, which was later republished as a book,{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=The Nymph and the Grot: an update|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/nymph-and-grot-update.html|website=Typefoundry blog|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite book|last1=Walters|first1=John|title=Fifty Typefaces That Changed the World: Design Museum Fifty|date=2 September 2013|publisher=Hachette|isbn=978-1840916492}}{{cite web|title=Motif Magazine: the world made visible|url=http://designobserver.com/feature/motif-magazine-the-world-made-visible/32978/|website=Design Observer|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite web|last1=Kinross|first1=Robin|title=Justin Howes obituary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/may/05/guardianobituaries.obituaries|website=The Guardian|date=5 May 2005|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite book|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=The nymph and the grot: the revival of the sanserif letter|date=1999|publisher=Friends of the St Bride Printing Library|location=London|isbn=9780953520107}} and 'Trajan Revived', on the Roman-style lettering revival of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.{{cite journal|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Trajan Revived|journal=Alphabet|date=1964|volume=1|pages=17–48}} He has collaborated with historians on other projects, for example on a study of the early printing of works by Hume and with Justin Howes.{{cite journal|last1=Norton|first1=David|title=John Wilson, Hume's First Printer|journal=The British Library Journal|date=1988|volume=14|issue=2|pages=123–135|url=http://www.bl.uk/eblj/1988articles/pdf/article9.pdf|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Handmade Type: Thoughts on the preservation of typographic materials|url=http://www.inclinepress.com/handmadetype.html|website=Incline Press|access-date=29 January 2016|archive-date=19 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150419145533/http://www.inclinepress.com/handmadetype.html|url-status=dead}} He also worked with Harry Carter, and has also contributed to a book on his son Matthew.{{cite book|last1=Drucker|first1=Margaret Re; essays by Johanna|last2=Mosley|first2=James|title=Typographically speaking : the art of Matthew Carter|date=2003|publisher=Princeton Architectural|location=New York|isbn=9781568984278|edition=2.}}
Mosley helped to acquire for St. Bride a large range of printing materials, at a time when companies were disposing of their hot metal typesetting and foundry type equipment or going out of business altogether. This included material from Monotype, H. W. Caslon & Company, Figgins and the Chiswick Press, as well as materials from printing shops including the collections of Oxford University Press and the Victoria & Albert Museum, supplementing the personal collections of William Blades and Talbot Baines Reed which the library already owned.{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=The materials of typefounding|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/materials-of-typefounding.html|website=Type Foundry|access-date=14 August 2015}}{{cite web|last1=Danielli|first1=Darryl|title=Interview: 'St Bride's is a living, breathing thing that pulls you in'|url=http://www.printweek.com/print-week/interview/1154658/st-bride-s-is-a-living-breathing-thing-that-pulls-you-in|website=Print Week|access-date=12 December 2015}} He has also advised on revivals of historic typefaces and lettering, for example one of traditional French metal stencil lettering.{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Lettres à jour: public stencil lettering in France|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/lettres-jour-public-stencil-lettering.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=12 December 2015}}
Since retirement from St. Bride Mosley has continued to write, research and lecture, for example on the career of Eric Gill in 2015.{{cite speech
|title=Lecture on Gill's work
|first1 =James
|last1=Mosley
|event= 'Me & Mr Gill' talk
|location=Old Truman Brewery, London
|date=November 10, 2015
|url= http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/noted-71
}} He also advised on creating historically accurate lettering for replica globes, Tate Britain and HMS Victory.{{cite web|title=HMS Victory to be re-painted in Battle of Trafalgar colours after 210 years|url=http://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/news/item/314-hms-victory-to-be-re-painted-in-battle-of-trafalgar-colours-after-210-years|publisher=Portsmouth Historic Dockyard|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite web|title=Font Victory|url=http://www.whybrow.co.uk/thoughts/reclaiming-the-craft-4-font-victory|publisher=Whybrow Wayfinding|access-date=12 December 2015|archive-date=22 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222170319/http://www.whybrow.co.uk/thoughts/reclaiming-the-craft-4-font-victory|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=A British National Letter|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/a-british-national-letter.html|website=Typefoundry (blog)|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{cite news|last1=Foyle|first1=Jonathan|title=Globemaker Peter Bellerby, the man with the world in his hands|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05a5297e-8eb0-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b.html|website=Financial Times|date=27 November 2015 |publisher=Nikkei|access-date=21 February 2016}}
References
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External links
- [http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk Personal blog]
- [https://www.flickr.com/photos/figgins/ Photographs]
Mosley's Type, Lettering and Calligraphy reading lists:
- [http://rarebookschool.org/2008/reading/typography/t50/ 1450-1830 reading list]
- [http://rarebookschool.org/2008/reading/typography/t55/ 1830-2000 reading list]
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Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Category:English art historians