Much amusement, not altogether unmixed with uneasiness, was caused in the printing trade between 1727 and 1740 by a futile attempt to introduce stereotyping. A Scotch printer having complained to a goldsmith in Edinburgh of the vexatious delays and inconvenience of having to send to London or Holland for type, it occurred to William Ged, the goldsmith in question, that, to use the words of Timperley (p. 584), the transition from founding single letters to founding whole pages, 'should be no difficult matter.' He made several experiments, and at length satisfied himself that his scheme was practicable. Accordingly, in 1727, he entered into a contract with an Edinburgh printer to carry out the invention, but after two years his partner withdrew, being alarmed at the probable cost. Ged then entered into partnership with William Fenner, a stationer in London, by whom he was introduced to Thomas James, the founder, and a company was formed to work the scheme. But James, perhaps influenced by the representations of his 'compositors,' whom the new invention threatened with the loss of work, instead of helping, did his utmost to ruin the undertaking and its inventor. Instead of supplying the best and newest type from which the matrices might be made, he furnished the worst, whilst his workmen damaged the formes. Much the same happened at Cambridge, where Ged was for a time installed as printer to the University. He struggled against the opposition so far as to produce two Prayer Books, but such was the animosity shown to the new invention, that the books were suppressed by authority, and the plates broken up. To add further to his troubles, dissension broke out between James and Fenner, neither of whom had any cause to be proud of their action towards Ged, who, disheartened and ruined, returned to Edinburgh. There another attempt was made by the friends of the inventor to produce a book, but no compositor could be found to set up the type, and it was only by Ged's son working at night that the edition of _Sallust_, and a few theological books, were finished and printed at Newcastle. Ged died in 1749, and his sons subsequently emigrated to the West Indies.