The Fishmongers' Arms

William Birtby, a fishmonger, issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business in Clare Market (modern area between Clare Market and Houghton Street), Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 643; Obv inscription: WILLIAM.BIRTBY.IN.CLARE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Fishmongers' arms (in field); Rev inscription: MARKETT.FISHMONGER (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALFE / PENNY / 1667 (in four lines of Roman capitals, in field).

The arms of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers are: Azure three dolphins naiant embowed in pale argent, finned, toothed and crowned or, between two pairs of stockfishes in saltire argent, over the mouth of each fish a crown; on a chief gules three pairs of keys of St. Peter in saltire (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). See also, 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. 334. Clare Market was named after John Holles, second Earl of Clare who established a small food market at Clement's Inn Fields in 1657, the market area spread over a wider area in time, with butchers' and grocers' shops covering many streets (Burn, 1885, p.69-70). The area lies in the City of Westminster, having formerly been part of Westminster, Middlesex.