The Lion

Robert Collins issued this trade token, worth a farthing, for his business in Stanhope Street, Clare Market neighbourhood, Middlesex.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 2943; Obv inscription: ROBERT.COLLINS (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = A lion rampant, within a circle (in field); Rev inscription: IN.STANOP.STREET (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = R.C with pellets (in field, in Roman capitals).

See also, NN19238, in the museum collection and token number 8951 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. Stanhope Street, lay in the neighbourhood of Clare Market. 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, 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), p. 69-70. The area lies in the City of Westminster, having formerly been part of Westminster, Middlesex.