William Ged died in Edin­burgh on 19 Octo­ber 1749. He had trained as a gold­smith, but pio­neered a sys­tem of stereo­typ­ing, though he was unsuc­cess­ful in per­suad­ing print­ers to adopt it. It became a stan­dard process ear­ly in the 19th century. 

On 15 Sep­tem­ber 1507 James IV grant­ed Wal­ter Chep­man and Andro Myl­lar a licence to set up a print­ing press in Edinburgh.