Founded by William Caslon around 1720, Caslon’s was the leading English typefoundry of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It continued under William Caslon II. On his death in 1778 the property was split between his wife and his son, William Caslon III. In 1792 the son sold his share to his mother and his sister-in-law to buy the foundry of their rival, Joseph Jackson, who had just died. The family of the sister-in-law kept the main Caslon foundry running until 1937, when it closed and the designs passed to Stephenson Blake (who back in 1819 had purchased the other Caslon foundry).