Mitchell Families Online

GENEALOGY OF MY MITCHELL FAMILIES - AND A LOT MORE BESIDES!

Rev. William Winterbotham

Rev. William Winterbotham

Male 1763 - 1829  (65 years)Deceased

 

Loading...



Obverse and reverse of a copper halfpenny token manufactured in the names of Henry Symonds, William Winterbotham, James Ridgway and David Holt, 1794. [Note: Earlier - and much rarer examples, show the Newgate gaol image with a flat roof]

Trials for sedition in late-eighteenth-century England were not uncommon, and the country could in no way be considered a safe place to speak out against government (or indeed, the Church). Those who continued to express dissent, however, did so not just in printed works and pamphlets, but also in metal.

Whether for collectors or for commercial use, the possibilities of a freely-circulating medium, almost impossible to police, were obvious to those who wished to spread propaganda against the state, and although the manufacturers and engravers of tokens would happily take commissions from such parties, the issuers could if necessary acquire the necessary machinery to manufacture them alone. Associations of dissenters who felt themselves particular notable, therefore, or those who wished to celebrate one of the few triumphs against the status quo, often had recourse to this form of advertising in copper.

The danger and isolation of dissent led to a grimly humourous camaraderie that makes these tokens witty, but often hard to grasp. This coin or token, for example, mimics the commercial issues that invited the buying public to redeem their tokens for silver at the issuer's business address ("Payable at the residence of..."), but the 'address' given by the reverse design is Newgate Gaol, because the four men named had been imprisoned there for sedition the previous year.

The joke hangs on the assumption that the prisoners' names would have been known to anyone who happened to receive the token. This is evidence in itself that the doings of revolutionaries were the subject of common report in London.

Source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England; Tokens of Revolution


Owner/SourceRM
DateAdded 31 Dec 2010
Linked toRev. William Winterbotham (Criminal Charges)