The Maidenhead

This trade token, worth a half penny, was issued for a business at The Maidenhead in Aldersgate Street, Aldersgate Ward, City of London. The tavern was likely to have been used by the company of mercers (textile traders), as the name relates to the Mercers' Company arms (as seen on the token).

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 16; Obv inscription: THE.MAIDENHEAD (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Mercers' Arms E.A. (in field, initials either side of arms, in Roman capitals); Rev inscription: IN.ALDERSGAT.STREET (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Mercers' Arms. 68 (in field, date either side of arms).

The arms of the Worshipful Company of Mercers are: Gules issuant from a bank of clouds a figure of the Virgin couped at the shoulders proper vested in a crimson robe adorned with gold, the neck encircled by a jewelled necklace, crined Or and wreathed about the temples with a chaplet of roses alternately Argent and of the first, and crowned with a celestial crown, the whole within a bordure of clouds also proper (J. Bromley, The Armorial Bearings of the Guilds of London: a record of the heraldry of the surviving companies with historical notes; with...[illustrations] by Heather Child...(London, 1960). It is possible that the use of The Maidenhead was in compliment to Catherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII, who's family adopted the maidenhead as one of their badges, see J. H. Burn, A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens current in the Seventeenth Century, presented to the Corporation Library by Henry Benjamin Hanbury Beaufoy, 2nd ed. (London, 1855), no.95. For additional information see also A. F.Sutton 'I Sing of a Maiden: The Story of the Maiden of the Mercers' Company (London, 1998). See also token number 6456 in the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 59, The Norweb Collection: Tokens of the British Isles 1575-1750, Part VII - City of London.