Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/465

 123.11. DEC. 2, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

In a ' Handbook to Sandgate,' published 1911, p. 6, occurs the following statement : ' At Hatton House, lived Faultneroy [sic] the banker, who was the last man hanged for forgery."

Is there any corroboration of this ? Probably he took the house only for the summer months ; it is a fairly large old- fashioned house. R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

EARL'S COURT, A LONDON SUBURB (12 S. ii. 389). In connexion with this subject the following extract from an advertise- ment in Churchill's ' Medical Directory ' for 1845 may be of interest :

"Mrs. Bradbury's Establishment, Earl's Court House, Old Brompton. near London. Mrs. Brad- bury receives a limited number of ladies labouring under nervous complaints. The house is sur- rounded by extensive gardens and pleasure grounds in which a farm and cows are included, combining All the advantages of rural cheerfulness with quiet and repose. It was long the favoured residence of the celebrated John Hunter, and is considered by the faculty, from the salubrity of its temperature, the excellence of its springs, with many other advantages, to be the Montpelier of the Metropolis.' S. D. CLIPPINGDALE, M.D.

' THE CHELTENHAM GUIDE ' (12 S. ii. 390). " The Cheltenham Guide ; or, Memoirs >f the B-N-R-D Family continued. In a Series of Poetical Epistles," 1781, is not in- cluded in Anstey's Collected Poetical Works. The article on William Fordyce Mavor in the ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' includes in his list of works " Poetical Cheltenham Guide, 12mo, 1781," and this is, I think, the guide just mentioned. It is not a guide in the proper sease of the word. The first of the numer- ous guides to Cheltenham was published also in 1781, and is given by Halkett and Laing as the work of W. Butler, the elder. ROLAND AUSTIN.

Gloucester.

The author of this work was Weeden Butler, the elder, i.e., " The Cheltenham Guide, or useful companion. . . .to the Chel- tenham Spa [By W. Butler, the elder]. London, 1781, 8vo." An account of his life will be found in the ' D.N.B.,' vol. viii., which also contains a list of his works. A copy of the guide might be seen at the British Museum. E. E. BARKER.

HEADSTONES WITH PORTRAITS OF THE DECEASED (12 S. ii. 210, 277, 377). The headstone of the grave of Hector Berlioz (1803-69), in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, bears a bronze portrait medallion of the composer. F. H. C.

0n Docks,

Tokens of the Eighteenth Century connected toitff Booksellers and Bookmakers (Authors, Printers^ Publishers, Engravers, and Paper Makers). By W. Longman. (Longmans & Co., 6s. net.)

MR. LONGMAN has in this small volume made a valuable contribution to the history of book- selling. This is the first time that a work has been written treating on tokens associated with booksellers and bookmakers, and, curiously enough, no reference to such tokens is to be found 7 in Timperley. The works hitherto published on- this subject have usually dealt with it geographi- cally, or else are merely catalogues alphabetically- arranged ; but, as Mr. Longman points out, Mr., A. W. Waters has in his two works (' Notes re- specting the Issuers of the Eighteenth -Century Tokens struck for the County of Middlesex ' and ' The Token Coinage of South London ') included"' interesting information concerning the persons who issued those pieces. In addition, Mr. Waters in The Publishers' Circular for May 11 and 18,. 1901, gave a list of booksellers' tokens, with brief notes, but he had not space to deal with the- matter fully.

Tokens are usually divided, Mr. Longman tells us, into three groups : 1. Seventeenth Century,. 1648-73 ; 2. Eighteenth Century, 1787-97 ; 3. Nineteenth Century, 1807-21. In all these it is the general rule to find the name of the issuer- and the town, while many give the issiier's trade- and place of residence. No doubt there is in- formation concerning the book trade to be gleaned from each of these three groups ; but, as a collector- of the second or eighteenth-century series, Mr.. Longman deals only with the pieces issued be- tween 1787 and 1801. In 1787 there was a great lack of regal small change ; coins of debased metal were in use, manjr forgeries were in circu- lation, and the inconveniences were so great that at last traders took the matter in hand, and the- result was a most interesting series of tokens.. " During the ten years up to 1797," we are told, " many millions of tokens were struck (one firm alone, the Anglesey Mines Company, issued 250- tons of pennies, and 50 tons of halfpennies), most of which were inscribed with the name and address of the issuer as a guarantee of good faith." In 1797 the Government took up the- matter, "and a fine series of copper coins was issued through Matthew Boulton, of the Soho Works, Birmingham." The first to be issued was the well-known twopenny piece. To carry many of these must have required strong pockets ; we have just weighed one, and it turns the scale at two ounces.

Thus the issue of tokens during the ten years had been enormous, and Mr. Longman, having' made a careful estimate, based upon Pye's book issued in 1801, calculates that three million were circulated by the booksellers and allied trades alone, without including the one and a half mil- lions of the Shakespeare halfpennies. It should also be remembered that Pye gives genuine trade tokens only, and " makes no mention of political pieces, pieces struck for collectors, or forgeries,. of which there were a large number."

The principal section of the book is devoted to the tokens issued by authors, booksellers, circu- lating libraries, and others. This opens with an