William Moon, Hon. LLD, FRSA, FRGS (18 December 1818 – 9 October 1894) was an

Englishman The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...

who created Moon type, the first widely used practical reading alphabet for the blind.

Life and career

Moon was born in

Horsmonden Horsmonden ( ) is a village in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. The village is located in the Weald of Kent. It is situated on a road leading from Maidstone to Lamberhurst, three miles north of the latter place. The nearest railwa ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. As a small child, he lost sight in one eye from

scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...

, and by the age of twenty-one he had become totally blind.Farrell, p. 102. He moved in with his widowed mother and sister in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

. 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 The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

, which he designed to be easier to learn. He first formulated his ideas in 1843 and they were published in 1845. Moon type was subsequently replaced in popularity by

Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...

but it is still important for people who have difficulty reading Braille. Moon achieved several distinctions during his lifetime: he was elected to fellowships of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

and the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

in 1852 and 1857 respectively; he was also awarded an honorary LLD degree by the

University of Philadelphia Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univ ...

in 1871.Day & McNeil 1995, p.499.

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 William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, the composer of 'Auld Robin Gray.' By the first marriage he had a son, 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. *

External links

Dr William Moon (RNIB)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moon, William 1818 births 1894 deaths English blind people British inventors Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society People from Horsmonden