David Kindersley

David Guy Barnabas Kindersley MBE (11 June 1915 – 2 February 1995) was a British stone letter-carver and typeface designer, and the founder of the Kindersley Workshop (later the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop). His carved plaques and inscriptions in stone and slate can be seen on many churches and public buildings in the United Kingdom. Kindersley was a designer of the Octavian font for Monotype Imaging in 1961, and he and his third wife Lida Lopes Cardozo designed the main gates for the British Library.

Kindersley was born at Codicote near Hitchin, the son of Major Guy Molesworth Kindersley (a stockbroker and MP) and the grandson on his mother's side of the Arts and Crafts potter Sir Edmund Elton. He was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, where "he had a wonderful time", becoming head boy, and the sharpness of his eye was shown by his outstanding skill at shooting.

He claimed that "aiming at the centre has always been an inherent quality with him". His elder brother, Hallam, died at Westminster School whilst Kindersley was still at St Cyprian's. Kindersley went on to Marlborough College, but left after three years because of rheumatoid arthritis.

After recovery, Kindersley was sent to Paris to learn French and study sculpture at the Academie St Julian and then with the Iduni brothers in London. He read the books of Eric Gill, and decided to become a stone-cutter. He became an apprentice to Gill in his workshop at Pigotts High Wycombe in December 1934, with the support of his father who, liking to do things the proper way, insisted on paying an apprenticeship indemnity. He worked on important commissions, including Bentall's store in Kingston upon Thames, St John's College, Oxford and Dorset House.

Kindersley left Gill's workshop in 1936 and set up his own workshop on the River Arun, where he still worked on commission for Gill. He married his first wife, Christina Sharpe, at the beginning of World War II and ran The Smith's Arms, a tiny pub (reputed to be the smallest in England) with her in Godmanstone, Dorset.

As a conscientious objector he refused to be put in a position where he would have to kill, although he applied (and was rejected) for the Home Guard. On the death of Eric Gill in 1940, Kindersley spent time sorting out the affairs of Gill's workshop at Pigotts.

In 1945, Kindersley moved to Cambridgeshire and set up his first fully-fledged letter-cutting workshop at Dales Barn in the village of Barton.

During this time, Kindersley developed his work and methods as he broke away from Gill, in his decorative embellishments of cutting, in his growing predilection for lettering on slate and the combination of lettering with heraldry. Nevertheless, in the organisation of the workshop there was still a sense of dynastic inheritance.