HistoricaLeigh: A token gesture

March 29, 2017 by Carole Mulroney

A TOKEN GESTURE

During the 17thcentury a shortage of coins let to shopkeepers and traders issuing their own tokens until a Royal Proclamation in 1672 forbade their circulation after the introduction of copper farthings and halfpennies.

Examples issued in Leigh were -

George King, a mercer who died in 1670, issued a half penny in 1668 depicting 3 tobacco rolls.

Joseph Lamb issued a quarter penny in 1664depicting a lamb couchant (lying down with its head raised).  The Lamb family settled in Leigh  and Jonas \Lamb was a shipwright and an affluent man. Abraham Lamb was a ships' carpenter and his son Isaac was a distiller who died in Leigh in 1752.