Joseph E. Josephs (1903-1985) was born in Calcutta into a thriving Indian Jewish community. He begun to collect autographs in 1923 and continued this activity for nearly 60 years. In 1924 he emigrated to New York where he lived for 15 years, running a small typewriter repair/rental company. In 1939 he joined the British Merchant Navy. He met his wife in Argentina in 1941. Their son Francis Josephs was born in London in 1945, and a second son was born in Buenos Aires, where the family lived until 1949. They moved briefly to Paris, before settling in Beckenham, Kent in 1951. He died there in 1985.

This biographical note was written by Francis Josephs in December 2011 and now forms part of the archive.