THOMAS Joy, a leading light of the book trade who started his outstanding career in Oxford, has died, aged 98.
The only boy in a family of seven, Mr Joy joined the choir at St Michael's Church, Oxford, which gave him a free education at private school Bedford House. He was top of his class.
His first job, aged 15, was as junior assistant at the Bodleian Library. He won the institution's First Curator's Prize before becoming an apprentice at bookseller's J Thornton and Sons.
He was elected chairman of the Oxford Booksellers' and Assistants' Association in 1925 and went on to establish Thornton's impressive oriental book department.
Ten years later, he left Oxford to become senior assistant and later manager of the Harrods Library. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1967 and awarded the Society's Jubilee Medal in 1977.
He married Edith Ellis in 1932, who died in 2001.
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