By Mary Bellis
Sterotype is a type of printing plate used in letterpress, newspaper, and other high-speed press runs.
William Ged was the Scottish goldsmith who invented stereotyping in 1725, a process in which a whole page of type is cast in a single mold so that a printing plate can be made from it. Until the invention of the stereotype printing type had to be reset if a second printing was to be made. Ged took a plaster mould of the type and then cast the whole page in metal. He was also the inventor of the "Lost Wax" process of metal casting, used for reproducing delicate designs, especially in the jewellery trade. Stereotyping, all though invented by William Ged in 1725, was reintroduced in 1784 by Alexander Tilloch, who improved upon the method of sterotyping.
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