Keighley token

[FosseWay]

The one below (7981)? (Apologies for its quality.)

I also have the other token below, which is countermarked KEIGHLEY on a Birmingham copper token, issued by the Keighley Overseers of the Poor.

With both of these, I've never been clear exactly how they were used. But my presumption is that they were issued and used in the same way as municipal and merchants' tokens in general - in other words, in practice they circulated as normal currency and were not restricted to use as internal prison/workhouse currency.

During the two big periods of copper token issues (1780s-90s and 1810s), these tokens in general circulated as normal currency alongside whatever regal coins came to hand. If the aim of these prison and workhouse tokens was to restrict their validity to within the institution, they would likely have failed spectacularly in this. I imagine that they would have been accepted outside just as easily as any other similar-sized merchant's token would; I don't suppose those accepting them would have known or cared about the difference.

[Figleaf]

The Newgate prison tokens are political support for some printers and book dealers convicted of sedition. They circulated strictly outside the infamous Newgate prison.

The Keighley counterstamp is Davis Countermarked tokens 51 and Gavin Scott 40.3 (5 varieties, of which 3 with double initials added). The note to Gavin Scott's listing says: Davis says these pieces were issued by Keighley Overseers of the Poor to pay the paupers in 1818. It is not certain that the addition of numbers or initials was the work of the Overseers. It is usual to find both the Bradford and Keighley countermarks on Union Copper Company pennies, though other types occur. A select Committee reported in July 1842 on 'allegations as to the management of the poor in the Keighley Union'. At this time there were 57 paupers in the workhouse, where the Master (appointed 1 April 1828) was Joseph Waterhouse.

The wording "to pay the paupers" leaves room for different uses, e.g.

• The poor worked in the workhouse, getting paid in tokens they could spend in approved shops (to avoid spending them on alcohol)
• The poor worked in the workhouse, getting paid in tokens (perhaps because they were getting paid by piece) they could exchange for money on leaving the facility
• The poor worked outside the workhouse, getting tokens instead of wages. The wages were paid to the workhouse. This is how the 1813 tokens of the Birmingham overseers of the poor were used.

The first option is possible only if the poor were free to leave. The second option will serve either for confinement or voluntary inmates. Under the third option, they would work outside the workhouse, could leave in principle, but would be penniless if they left. There may be other options.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Apologies. I did last what I should have done first: check Withers. He makes an excellent case that a) the initials are for real and b) the tokens are likely not for the workhouse. Withers has a picture of an obvious forgery of the KEIGHLEY counterstamp.

Peter

[FosseWay]

The wording "to pay the paupers" leaves room for different uses, e.g.

• The poor worked in the workhouse, getting paid in tokens they could spend in approved shops (to avoid spending them on alcohol)
• The poor worked in the workhouse, getting paid in tokens (perhaps because they were getting paid by piece) they could exchange for money on leaving the facility
• The poor worked outside the workhouse, getting tokens instead of wages. The wages were paid to the workhouse. This is how the 1813 tokens of the Birmingham overseers of the poor were used.

Given the money supply reality of the 1810s, the first option would have been "leaky" to the point of unusability, which was the point I made earlier. There were hundreds of different tokens in circulation in lieu of coin of the realm, and it would have been naive of the overseers to expect general retailers to refuse to accept workhouse tokens in particular among all the random copper discs they were presented with as payment. Moreover, the examples I've seen, including the ones I've got (I have the Birmingham workhouse one as well), are generally well circulated.

The problem with the second option is that there was no money for the paupers to exchange tokens into (at least not unless they had enough of them to change for large silver or gold). Once they left the facility they'd find themselves using much the same kind of unofficial copper disc as they had used inside.

The third option is entirely possible, almost by default. An individual pauper would only earn pennies per day, and the only penny-sized denominations available were tokens. An employer would probably employ several paupers, and probably settle the account with the workhouse weekly rather than daily, so would hand over a bigger chunk of money at a time, for which either silver or gold coins or banknotes/money orders were available.

A fourth option is that workhouse inmates were paid like normal workers, and the form they received their wages in reflected current practice and what was available. I imagine non-workhouse-related employees of iron foundries, woollen mills, canal companies and everywhere else also received (some of) their wages in tokens.

[FosseWay]

To expand on the "leakiness" of the first option: If the main aim was to prevent paupers spending their money on alcohol, or more cynically to restrict where they could spend it to certain businesses run by the friends and relatives of the workhouse overseers, there were other ways of ensuring that occurred than issuing copper tokens that look like both coins and like other copper tokens in general use.

Göteborgs Fattigvård - the equivalent of the overseers of the poor for Gothenburg - issued square tinplate or zinc tokens stamped with letters and numbers of unclear meaning to the uninitiated. Some have numbers but are clearly not denominations; others just have GF. Either way they cannot be confused with anything that could remotely be used as current money at the time of issue. Later on, when the supply of standard coinage wasn't a problem and tokens didn't circulate beyond the establishments that issued them, Göteborgs Fattigvård issued coin-shaped tokens denominated in öre for the same purpose of preventing inmates spending money on drink or, um, ladies of negotiable affection.

[Figleaf]

Mmm. Actually, they weren't workhouse tokens, so that discussion is moot.

Peter

[JohnI]

The towns, through the auspices of the church, were responsible for the welfare of their poor people, which included allowing begging. This was OK before the industrial revolution when the vast majority of the population was relatively stationary and occupied land.

The clearances associated with the industrial revolution resulted in a large number of displaced landless poor people. This led to the practice of issuing begger's licences so that only the poor of the area could obtain support and beg. This was followed by the establishment of poor houses which were often also called workhouses. These provided accomodation for poor people with those able to work being required to work.

The term poor covered what would be called working class people today and there have been several phases of towns issuing tokens to provide small change for working class people. In the 17th century these could state "for the relief of the poor". These would probably have been issued and exchanged at the town hall.

With the establishment of workhouses, the workhouse would probably be where the tokens would be issued. The Leeds workhouse tokens advert below from Decemeber 1814 points to the workhouse tokens being intended for general circulation. In other words the workhouse was the issuer rather than the only intended user of the tokens.


The Keighley tokens are described as workhouse tokens by Samuel Hamer (co-author of Dalton & Hamer) in a 1906 meeting of the Halifax Antiquarian Society. Samuel Hamer was from Halifax, near Keighley. He was born in 1859 and would have been able to inquire locally as to the origins of the tokens.

The Keighley countermarked tokens are described as scarce, which would indicate quite a large issue. The additional initial countermarks are described as rare to very rare, which would indicate smaller issues.

A probable scenario is that the tokens were issued by the town for general circualtion and administered through the workhouse. The counterstamps could be from some mill owners wishing to have more tokens issued than the town was prepared to pay for, so paid for the additional issue. Their marks on the tokens are most likely to ensure that they were given to the mill owners when struck rather than that they were redeemable by or for the sole use of the mill owners.


Regards;



John
 

[Figleaf]

See my post #2 above. Assigning them to the workhouse flies in the face of the arguments presented there, in particular on the initials.

Peter

[brandm24]

The Keighley countermarked tokens are described as scarce, which would indicate quite a large issue. The additional initial countermarks are described as rare to very rare, which would indicate smaller issues.
 

[/quote]
I've seen dozens and dozens of these counterstamped Keighley tokens. In the counterstamp world they would be considered common as only small numbers of almost any issue would have survived. Undoubtedly, a large number were issued as you say John.

Interestingly, I've rarely seen a badly struck or off-center strike.

Bruce

[Offa]

I would hazard a guess at them being alms tokens given to the poor of the parish to enable them to buy food. I know for certain that each parish had alms cottages for the poor as there were some near where I grew up, the parish almoner also gave the poor promissory notes that enabled them to buy essentials at a named shop (usually owned by the almoner)




https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/alms#:~:text=Alms%20are%20money%2C%20food%2C%20or,%22Alms%20for%20the%20poor!%22

[JohnI]

The question is if the tokens were issued, as Davis and Hamer proposed, by the Workhouse (or Overseers) - in effect a town issue. The proposal by Withers is that a minority were issued by mill owners and that this, with the absence of the word Workhouse makes the majority issued by persons unknown (i.e. annonymous).

At the token listing Davis makes an ambigous claim that the tokens were used to pay paupers in 1818 (i.e. it could mean that from this date they were only used for this purpose or that they were first issued on this date for this purpose). In his introduction he states a more general use for the tokens;



The Keighley tokens not stating Workhouse or Overseers can be explained by the intended use being similar to the known use of the Sheffield and Birmingham tokens and Davis description of their use (i.e. for paying the poor and general circulation).

There are many early 19th century business countermarks that, only having the issuer's initials, are now untraceable. Therefore an annonymous issue, amongst other questions, raises the question as to why mill owners in Keighley were aligning themselves to a much larger annonymous issue. This is especially the case for the JM countermark issue. This is a design change to the standard Keighley one.


Regards;



John

[Figleaf]

Thank you for that thoughtful reply, John!

Perhaps the most basic underlying question here is who to trust. The first author or the latest author. I strongly believe that the answer should be "the latest author", with two exceptions: the first author gets precedence if b) the latest author can be shown to have made a significant number of mistakes, indicating that "he didn't do his homework" or that a) the first author can be shown to have been in active contact with the original issuers. I can be short about a). The Davis book was issued in 1904. It is quite unlikely Davis was in contact with the issuers.

On to b). I have discussed Mr. Whithers' book with the author. He showed me some factual errors in Davis and impressed upon me that he and his wife, Bente, had spent long hours of research. He was anxious for me to understand that he hadn't just copied Davis and did original research in documentation and archives.

If there is a discrepancy between Davis and Whithers, I would go with the latter as a point of departure. I am comforted in this approach by a remark made by Joe Cribb during a Zoom call we participated in. He took a book out of his library and forcefully made the point that one should always use the last available publication on a subject.

As quite often is the case with tokens, the information on the token is terse. KEIGHLEY. It does not say workhouse, poor, municipal or suchlike. Whithers makes two important points: 1) worsted spinning and manufacturers was the main economic activity in the area and 2) all the known initials correspond to a person working in Keighley in this area. It follows that KEIGHLEY can very well mean that all the issuers were situated there - an important point to make to promote acceptance of the token: you don't have to go the Birmingham or London to get your money for the tokens. The isuers are all together in one town. The counterstamp could have been a common activity, with the initials added to designate the specific issuer. This is all the more likely if we remember that the first successful cooperative shop was established by a group of weavers (Rochdale, 1844). Co-operation between people in the same branch of industry was possible.

The remaining question is about the tokens with KEIGHLEY but without the initials. I don't have an answer, but I can think of a number of scenarios, the simplest of which being that the textile makers decided they didn't need to know who issued each specific token, but only how many tokens each specific participant in the scheme issued. That was easy to keep track of on paper: one trusted third party keeps the counterstamp and registers who took out how many counterstamped tokens and how many were returned to the registrar.

In reality, I don't have the inclination to research the question, so I use the second best solution: follow Whithers on this point also.

Peter

[JohnI]

The contemporary comment on the use of workhouse tokens is the reason for concession in the 1817 act for Sheffield and Birmingham tokens - the reason for the Sheffield concession in the Act is;

". . . the immediate suppression of which would be attended with great loss to the said township, and to the holders of such Tokens, being for the most part labourers and mechanics, as well as with great inconvenience to the inhabitants of the said township and the neighbourhood thereof."

It is also my understanding that truck tokens were an unfortunate result of the 1817 act, which banned general circulation tokens. In other words town issue tokens, what ever they said on them, were for general circulation.

Davis comment at the tokens is;

"These were issued by the Keighley Overseers of the Poor, to pay the paupers in 1818."

Given that Davis stated that the Keithley and Bradford tokens were town issues for general circulation, I would consider that the more appropriate reading of his comment would be that when the act came into force in 1818 the tokens were used as Offa has noted above (i.e. for exchange by the poor at specific shops).

The Sheffield tokens circulated until 1823 and tend to be found in very worn condition. The average Keighley countermarked token is in much better condition than the average Sheffield token. This indicates that if Davis is correct, the tokens were likely only issued to the poor in Keighley during 1818 and possibly 1819.

Your interpretation on who issued the Keighley tokens without initials depends to a certain extent on if you consider the workhouse tokens to be a town issue for general circulation, with the workhouse being the administrator, or if you consider the workhouse tokens to be only for use by the workhouse.

Regards;



John

[JohnI]

An 1822 Directory is an indication that a business existed in 1814-16, the probably token issue period. However I had a look at Baines' 1822 West Yorkshire Directory.

The 1822 directory lists 23 worsted manufacturers in Keighley. There is no indication that these people were anything other than owners of a small number of hand looms that they either had on a business premises or, more likely, were located in their weaver's homes.

The 1822 directory lists 18 worsted spinners and manufacturers (i.e. people who carried out worsted spinning possibly in addition to making cloth). Of these 4 were mill owners. There is no indication that the others were anything other than small operations who had the wool hand spun, either on a business premises or, more likely, in their wool spinner's homes.

Of the four potential issuers listed by Withers, only one is listed as a mill owner, William Wilkinson. From the photographs on the web, Castle Mill looks like it was a small mill that was later extended. It was probably a similar operation to nearby Greenroyd Mill. This mill employed 27 people in 1833, with half of them under the age of 12. William Wilkinson may have been the grocer and flock dealer listed under the same name in 1822. If this is the same William Wilkinson, these additional activities would increase the likelihood that he is the WW on the tokens.


Regards;



John

 

[JohnI]

Something else to add to the mix.

Below is a Keighley token sold by ABC coins. This shows the obverse and reverse marks lining up and indicates striking on a press, a raised blank anvil section being used below the incuse strike;


Below is a GR version on sale on ebay. As with the above I have rotated the coins to straighten the top Keighleys while keeping the two sides level;


Like others on sale, the G and R look like they have been applied with different punches by hand - in this case they do not line up with each other. In addition the obverse and reverse Keighley punches do not align with the coin (i.e. the indication is that they have been applied seperately, probably by hand).

For the JM ones I have seen the Keighley strike is clearly not concentric with the coin.

Another little snippet is that Boyne, who was born in Leeds and lived there for about 40 years does not list the Keighley tokens in his 1858 book on Yorkshire tokens. As far as I know the first reference to them is in Davis book of Warwickshire tokens published in 1895, who does mentions the GR and JM countermarks.

** Just checked Batty published in 1869. It mentions the Keighley countermark and all three initials. **

Regards;



John