The Butchers' Arms

Andrew Porter issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business in the Market Place, Westminster, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 2542; Obv inscription: ANDREW. PORTER. IN. YE. MARKET (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = The Butchers' arms (in field); Rev inscription: PLACE.WESTMINSTER.1670 (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALF / PENY / A.E.P. (in four lines of Roman capitals with triad of initials as bottom, in field).

The arms of the Worshipful Company of Butchers are: Azure two poelaxes in saltire, or blades inwards, between two bulls' heads couped in fesse argent, on a chief argent a boar's head couped gules, tusked or langued azure, between two bunches of holly vert, banded (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, NN18566, in the museum collection, and token number 8911 in the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 62, The Norweb Collection: Tokens of the British Isles 1575-1750, Part VIII - Middlesex and Uncertain Pieces. The Market Place refered to on the token, St James' Market, lay on St James' Fields, in Westminster, Middlesex; the area now forms Waterloo Place and its environs, to the north east of Pall Mall, in the City of Westminster.