William Moon (18 December 1818 – 9 October 1894) was an Englishman who created Moon type, the first widely used practical reading alphabet for the blind.

Life and career

Moon was born in Horsmonden, Kent. As a small child, he lost sight in one eye from scarlet fever, and by the age of twenty-one he had become totally blind. He moved in with his widowed mother and sister in Brighton, East Sussex. He became a teacher, and taught boys how to read using the existing embossed reading codes.

Moon realised that the boys found these reading codes difficult to learn. He devised a new system, Moon type, based on a simplified Latin alphabet, which he designed to be easier to learn.

Family

Moon was twice married, in 1843 to Mary Ann Caudle, daughter of a Brighton surgeon, who died in 1864; and in 1866 to Anna Maria Elsdale, a granddaughter of William Leeves, the composer of 'Auld Robin Gray'.

By the first marriage he had a son, Robert Charles Moon, who was of great assistance to him in arranging his type to foreign languages, and was as of 1901 a physician in Philadelphia; and a daughter, who was as of 1901 superintending the undertaking that Moon inaugurated.

References

Sources

Bibliography

  • Day, Lance & McNeil, Ian (editors). 1995. Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. Routledge.
  • Dr William Moon (RNIB)