{"id":77669,"date":"2025-08-26T18:22:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T01:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/?p=77669"},"modified":"2025-08-26T18:23:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T01:23:43","slug":"a-small-tribute-to-james-mosley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2025\/08\/26\/a-small-tribute-to-james-mosley\/","title":{"rendered":"A small tribute to James Mosley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>In 2007, I had just<\/strong> turned in my MA dissertation at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reading.ac.uk\/typography\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reading<\/a>, and spent a few weeks volunteering at <a href=\"https:\/\/sbf.org.uk\/library\/\" target=\"_blank\">St. Bride<\/a> to help them shift books and boxes around the building so they could renovate. One day, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Mosley\" target=\"_blank\">James Mosley<\/a> and his wife dropped by, because the library had asked James to finally clean out a storage closet he had started using when he had been the librarian. Among the impressive collections of Penguin paperbacks and assorted magazines, he had also saved many of his childhood toys and school notebooks. (He was struggling with maths as a youngster!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_1-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_1-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_1.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" data-id=\"77671\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_2-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_2-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_2-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_2-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_2.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" data-id=\"77674\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_4-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77674\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_4-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_4-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_4-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_4-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_4.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_3-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77673\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_3-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_3-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_3-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mosley_toys_3.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He very kindly let me keep these sweet tin and wood toys of his, which were probably from around 1940. He also gave me a random matrix drawer from the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.typoretum.co.uk\/2013\/03\/28\/type-specimens-from-the-vincent-figgins-type-foundry-\u2013-1815\/\" target=\"_blank\">Figgins<\/a> foundry that had been sitting in a pile of odds and ends, and encouraged me to sit in on his lectures again as long as I was still living in Reading with time on my hands. I have to confess that his rich curriculum of type history was much easier to process the second time around, once I\u2019d already had time to digest what he\u2019d shared with us during the year of MA. James was generous with his knowledge and insights, but it was this small act of generosity with his personal nostalgia that still sits with me all these years later. I thank him for all of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2007, I had just turned in my MA dissertation at Reading, and spent a few weeks volunteering at St. Bride to help them shift books and boxes around the building so they could renovate. One day, James Mosley and his wife dropped by, because the library had asked James to finally clean out a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2025\/08\/26\/a-small-tribute-to-james-mosley\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A small tribute to James Mosley&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultrascrapbook","category-ultratypographic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77669"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77676,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77669\/revisions\/77676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}