The Magpie

David Gillat, a haberdasher, issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business at the sign of the Magpie, in Aldgate without (area around Aldgate High Street), Aldgate Ward, City of London.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 88; Obv inscription: DAVID.GILLAT.AT.THE.PYE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A magpie (in field); Rev inscription: WITHOVT.ALGATE.1671(around field, in Roman capitals) Device = D.G ½ (in field, D and G either side of ½, in Roman capitals).

David Gillat, born in 1644, was a Haberdasher see Percival Boyd, [Inhabitants of London]. Society of Genealogists, MS. 20875. Gillat seems to have been the proprietor of the Pie (Magpie) tavern in the parish of St Botoph without Aldgate. See also token in the Museum of London's collection NN16432 and token number 6494 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 and 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. 80.