April 20th 2018
Next
club meeting Monday 30th
April 2018.
·
Subject - A
History of the Postal Order by Gary Oddy
Monday 4th June 2018.
- Subject - Annual
General Meeting and Display Competition
Monday 2nd July 2018.
- Subject - The First Twelve Caesars by Derek Aldred
Meetings are held
at the
NOTICES
- Very disappointingly
the issue of ‘noises off’ has arisen again. Please note it is
disrespectful to the speaker if members are shuffling papers, sorting
coins or even having conversations during the lecture. Please be more
considerate in future.
- The June meeting is the AGM, where the Committee
officers report the status of the club and initiatives for the future. It
is also where the membership voice their
opinions, concerns and ideas for the future. The committee
welcomes/needs direction from the membership,
please start thinking about it now.
- The committee
also needs members. Please consider joining, it is not fair to
leave the running of the club to the same small number of members every
year. If you are willing to become a
member of the committee please notify one of the current committee.
- Remember the AGM is
when the Annual Display Competition for the Michael Broome Memorial Cup is
held. Please try and bring an entry along this year.
March Meeting
Reading Coin Club were entertained by a very interesting talk given by Tim
Millet on the subject of Convict Love Tokens.
Tim started off with a
history of transportation of felons to the colonies which started quite early
in the 18th century but was interrupted by the American War of
Independence. After this it took some years to re-establish penal colonies in
Australia and the conditions under which these early transportees
lived were truly horrific. In addition to the privations they were likely to
encounter on the journey, the convicts could spend up to a year in various
penal institutions before being transported.
And so with a great deal of time on their hands, the
convicts looked for ways to fill their days, and one of these ways was to
engrave tokens to various loved ones who were to be left behind. Taking their
lead from established sailors’ practice, most of the engraving was done on coin
of the realm, principally the cartwheel penny. The engraving itself took two
main forms, firstly stipple engraving in which a nail
was forced into the soft copper of the coin thus making a small indentation or
dot. These dots could then be arranged in patterns to form words or pictures
and the standard of workmanship ranged from the crude to the highly skilled.
Some convicts were even able to produce tokens by the much more skilled method
of line engraving.
Part of the joy of collecting convict love tokens is
that as most items were signed and dated, it is possible to research the lives
of the engravers and Tim mentioned several of these. The most noteworthy was a
Thomas Barrett who was being transported to Australia for forgery. Already a
skilled engraver, he attempted to pay various Portuguese merchants in Rio de
Janeiro with counterfeit coins made from buttons, buckles and pewter ship’s
spoons. Despite the fact that he had thereby committed another crime, the
captain was so impressed with the level of workmanship that he commissioned
Barrett to produce a piece of work known as the ‘Charlotte Medal’. This unique
item is now regarded as the first piece of Australian colonial art and in 2008
was sold to the Australian government for $750,000. Barrett himself, despite
this early piece of good fortune was unable to change his ways and this led to
his other claim to fame; he was the first person in Australia hanged for theft…
(Image from National
Museum of Australia).
Barrett was probably one of
several career engravers who would engrave tokens for the other, largely
illiterate convicts, presumably for a small fee and Tim has identified the same
hand in several of the items in his collection.
Around 90% of the 162,000
transported convicts were men, although the government was keen to send as many
convicted women as possible. Tim mentioned a rather sad token produced by (or
possibly for) a Mary Ann Witlock who was transported
to Australia for theft and vagrancy. Strangely her token is not addressed to a
lover but to her aunt. She spent the rest of her life in Australia in and out
of prison, eventually marrying a farmer some 30 years her senior.
At the other end of the scale there was the case of
Thomas Burbury initially condemned to death in 1832
for Luddite activities but this was commuted to transportation for life. Burbury was clearly a man of substance and very unusually
his neighbours from Warwickshire provided the funds to send his wife and
children out to join him. He ultimately became a civic dignitary in Tasmania
and a substantial landowner. His family prospered and his grandson Sir Stanley
Charles Burbury became Tasmania’s first
Australian-born state governor.
Tim finished with a collage
of other engraved coins including one celebrating the pelting with rotten eggs
of a particularly corrupt and unpopular Lord Mayor of London.
Initially convict love tokens
were shunned by the numismatic establishment as merely defaced coins but over
the years their popularity has grown and good examples now change hands for
considerable sums. They are an excellent window on the past, and provide a
unique insight into the lives of some of our less fortunate ancestors.
The club thanks Tim for this
excellent talk on a thoroughly absorbing subject.
Future
Events.
- Bloomsbury Coin Fair –
Bloomsbury Hotel, London 5th May
- Baldwin Auctions – Strand, London, 8th May
- Midland Coin Fair -
National Motorcycle museum – 13th May
- Worthing Coin Fair –
Chatsworth Hotel, Worthing – 20th May
Past Events
- 40 years ago our club was
visited by the Hayes and District Coin Club
- 30 years ago Jonathon
Morris gave a talk in two parts entitled “Numismatics: Is there a cure?”
and “Notes on Edward I”
- 20 years ago a
"Numismatic Brains Trust” was
held
- 10 years ago we had Fun
with Junk Boxes by Tony Holmes (Part II).
Club Secretary.