WILLIAM, an eminent letter-founder, was born in 1692, in Hales Owen, Shropshire. When a boy, he served an apprenticeship to an engraver of ornaments on gun-barrels, and afterwards carried on this business on his own account in Vine Street, near the Minories. He also employed himself in making tools for bookbinders, and for the chassing of silver plate. While engaged in this business, the lettering of a book from tools cut by him attracted the attention of Mr Bowyer, who induced him to take the superintendence of a type-foundry, and lent him L500 to begin the undertaking. In 1720 the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge engaged Mr Caslon to cut the font for an edition of the New Testament and Psalter in Arabic. This undertaking he accomplished successfully; and in his subsequent productions he made so great improvement that the importation of type from Holland entirely ceased, and many of his fonts were extensively used on the continent. He died in January 1766.