William A. Dwiggins designed Caledonia for Linotype in 1939. Initially, he had intended to blend the elements of Scotch Roman and Bulmer typefaces, but ended up with a design that bettered both his models. Dwiggins describes it as having “something of that simple, hard-working, feet-on-the-ground quality that has kept Scotch Roman in service for so many years.”

The Bulmer types gave Caledonia “the liveliness of action the quality is in the curves, the way they get away from the straight stems with a calligraphic flick, and in the nervous angle on the underside of the arches as they descend to the right.”

The result, Caledonia (the Latin name for Scotland), is one of the most widely used book types of all time.

In the late 1980s, Linotype released New Caledonia, removing some of the constraints placed on the original design when it was first produced in metal and augmenting the range of weights for the typeface.