In 1725, William Ged had obtained a privilege for a development of Van der Mey's process, but encountered practical difficulties.

[1] Tilloch independently developed a process by 1782, and worked with Andrew Foulis the younger, printer to the university of Glasgow.

Receiving no encouragement, he brought his process before the notice of the Commission d'Assignats of the Legislative Assembly, at Paris, but then came the outbreak of war.

He could not, however, persuade the authorities to accept it,[2] though in 1810 they adopted the process of Augustus Applegath, which Tilloch claimed in 1820, in a petition to parliament, to be virtually his own.

In 1797 he projected and established the Philosophical Magazine, a journal devoted to scientific subjects, and intended for the publication of new discoveries and inventions.

3161) for ‘apparatus to be employed as a moving power to drive machinery and mill work.’ In later life Tilloch devoted attention to scriptural prophecy, joined the Sandemanians, and occasionally preached to a congregation in Goswell Street.