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Traders' tokens formed an illegal "money of necessity," and were
issued in England, Wales, and Ireland in the seventeenth century.
They were the small change of the period, and were extremely useful
to the people who issued and used them. They would never have
been issued but for the indifference of a Government to a public
need, and their issue forms a remarkable instance of a people supplying
their own needs by an illegal issue of coinage, and in this way
forcing a legislature to comply with demands and requests at once
just and imperative.
The first major coinage of tokens was that which occurred in the
17th Century
Tokens are essentially democratic; they were issued by the people,
and it is of the people that they speak. They record, with few exceptions,
the names of no monarchs; they speak of no wars or events of great
Parliamentary importance; they were not issued by Governments or
Cabinets, nor by Peers or Members of Parliament, but by the unknown
and small traders of well-nigh every village and town in the country,
and by officials such as Mayors, Portreeves, Chamberlains, Overseers,
and Churchwardens in boroughs, villages, and districts, as well as
in larger towns, parishes, and hundreds. The reason of their issue
was to supply a public need, and when that need had been recognised
by the Government and steps taken to supply it, the issue of tokens
ceased, and they passed from the exchange of the shop and the market
into the cabinets of the numismatist. The issue commenced in 1648
and only extended to 1679, so that the entire series forms one very
short chapter of thirty years in the history of that most troublous
of times in our country's history, that immediately following the
execution of King Charles I. The want of small change had, however,
been seriously felt in England for a long time preceding their issue.
It had been considered beneath the dignity of the sovereign to issue
coins of any metal baser than silver, and owing to the increased value
of silver the unit of currency
had become more and more minute in size and consequently inconvenient
for use. The counters struck at Nurnberg became current
for reckoning in England about 1328, but were forbidden currency
by statute in 1335. In 1404 the first mention of tokens that is
known occurred (as was pointed out by Dr. Evans) in a petition from
the Commons to the King to make some remedy in the mischief
among poor people occasioned by the want of small coinage and by
their use of foreign money and tokens of lead. These lead tokens
were issued in great abundance; they are referred to by Erasmus as
of common currency, but it is very seldom they bear the name of
either issuer or place of issue. Elizabeth issued patterns for a regal
coinage in copper, but the matter went no further, and no current
coins appear ever to have been issued by the Queen in the baser
metals. Her Majesty, however, did grant permission to the city of
Bristol to strike tokens to be current in that city and ten miles around.
The date of the license is not exactly known, but it must have been
towards the close of the sixteenth century, for on May 12, 1594, the
Mayor and Aldermen were required to call in all the private tokens
(presumably of lead) that had been issued without authority, and it
was ordered that none that had been issued without license from the
Mayor should be current in the city. These Elizabethan tokens bear
on the obverse C.B. (Civitas Bristol), and on the reverse the city
arms, and are very rude in their execution. The license appears to
have continued to apply to that city, as in the seventeenth century
but one private person in Bristol issued his token; the city continuing
to issue tokens year by year of similar character and style and with
similar device to those issued by license of the Queen.
A copper coinage was contemplated by the Commonwealth Government,
and patterns were struck both in copper and pewter, but no
authorized issue of them ever took place, and beyond the royal
tokens, known as Harringtons, and referred to later on, no attempt
was made to supply the great national want of the period. Extracts
from the State papers of the time show us that the subject was often
considered in the Councils of State, as, for instance:
1649, May 30.--Council of State. The business of farthing tokens
is to be considered to-morrow.
1650, Aug. 9.--A decision arrived at. Farthings ought to be issued.
They should be struck by the Mint and be of full value.
1651, Aug. 10.--A lengthy report was presented to the Council of
State by Thomas Voilet, from which it may suffice here to make a few extracts.
[See the full
document here.] The report commences by stating that money is the
public means to set a price upon all things between man and man,
and experience hath sufficiently proved in all ages that small money
is so needful to the poorer sort that all nations have endeavoured to
have it. It continues to recommend small pieces as ministering of
frugality, whereupon men can have a farthing's worth and are not
constrained to buy more of anything than they stand in need of, their
feeding being from hand to mouth; it recommends it on the ground
of charity, saying that many are deprived of alms for want of farthings
and half-farthings, for many would give a farthing who are not disposed
to give a penny or twopence, or to lose time in staying to
change money whereby they may contract a noisome smell or the
disease of the poor.
It then refers to the imperial money of Rome constantly being
ploughed up in men's grounds, and to the copper money of the Continent,
especially Sweden, and goes into some elaborate details of
great interest as to the profit to be derived by the Government from
making such farthings of tin and copper, and as to the appointment
of special treasurers and officers to see to this new issue.
In 1652 a further discussion as to the engines for minting metal
took place, and then constant references [see Calendar of State Papers] occur as to the issue of
tradesmen's tokens and corporation pieces, complaints against the
issues and proposals to stop the issue; but nothing was finally done
until 1672, when a Royal proclamation was issued for making current
his Majesty's farthings and halfpence of copper, and forbidding
of all others to be used. [A further proclmation was made
on 05 December 1674 enjoining the prosecution of those continuing to issue coins of base metal having a private stamp on it.]
This proclamation was universally obeyed throughout England,
Scotland, and Wales, except (as far as can be found out) in the city
of Chester, which continued to issue its tokens until 1674, a course
which resulted in legal proceedings being taken against the city by
the Crown. The issuers petitioned Sir William Williams, the then
member and Speaker of the House of Commons, who interceded
with the law officers of the Crown, and proceedings were stayed on
condition of the offenders complying with the provisions of the Act. [Heywood's "Tokens of Cheshire," p. 66.]
The same state of affairs appears to have also existed in Norfolk, and
the city of Norwich petitioned the Crown, and a pardon was granted
and the tokens were then called in by public bellman.
The issue of tokens in Ireland continued until 1679. They were
struck in copper, brass, and bronze, and occasionally in lead, but the
majority are in copper, and were issued of three denominations--penny,
halfpenny, and farthing. They are generally circular, but
some of them are square, heart-shaped, diamond-shaped, and octagonal,
and this is more often the case with those issued by corporations
and towns. The execution of them is frequently pleasing in character
and style, but is never of any exceptional artistic merit. The
engravers for the mints, especially Rawlins, who under the Commonwealth
fell into great poverty, and from having designed the regal
coins and seals was glad to be employed upon these tokens, are in
some instances the authors of the designs, and these are then
distinguished by the initial of the artist's name. In many cases it
would appear that local artists were employed, and that they travelled
on from town to town, something in the manner of the ancient
Anglo-Saxon moneyers, designing tokens for the various villages and
towns through which they passed. There is a similarity of design,
both in style, lettering, and device, and a correspondence of mintmarks
in the tokens of many adjacent places, which appears to point
to some such manner of working, and in many towns the dies are
still preserved, and traditions of the place of mintage. Many were,
however, struck in London, and consequently names of both issuers
and places incorrectly spelt. Taken as a whole series they are homely
and quaint, wanting in beauty, but not without a curious domestic
art of their own, and the inscriptions and devices upon them throw
some interesting side-lights upon the folk-lore, manners, habits, and
customs of that period of thirty years.
There were two further "outbreaks" of token coinages. The first of these was in the latter part of the 18th Century.
The official copper coins in circulation had become very worn and were not being replaced with official pieces, the
last of which were struck in 1775. Furthermore, counterfeit pieces were rampant. In 1787 the Anglesey Copper Mining
Company began striking tokens which were necessary for trade, and others soon followed suit. Most companies in most
towns struck them and the 18th Century Tokens began to be traded in widespread fashion. They were made illegal when the
new copper coinage of 1797 was issued. However, not long after, in 1811, there was once again a need for small change
and, as there were no official copper coins struck after 1807, the 19th Century Tokens began to emerge. So great was
the need for coins that silver pieces were struck also, and the Bank of England also issued silver tokens. These coins
were made illegal when the new coinage of 1816 took place.
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