DORSET SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TOKENS. 45 



We now come to the tokens of the county of Dorset, which are 

 "principally farthings, the half-pennies are very few in number, 

 " and there are no pennies." Such is the statement of Boyne in 

 his book, which was issued in 1858, but only a year or two ago I 

 thought I had come across a veritable Dorset penny token. There 

 is in the Dorset County Museum at Dorchester a penny token, 

 which is said to have been found in the neighbourhood, having on 

 the obverse GIDEON HAYNE, and in the centre the arms of the 

 Hayne family (on a fess three bezants ; in chief a greyhound 

 courant the tinctures not being decipherable) and on the reverse 

 MARCHANT IN THIN, and in the centre G.I.H. and 1 D - below. 

 On the strength of this I was about to include this one among the 

 the tokens of the town of Dorchester, taking TRIN to refer to 

 Holy Trinity parish, notwithstanding the suspiciously Irish nature 

 of the word MARCHANT, because the family of Hayne exists in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of Dorchester at the present time, 

 and the very name of the issuer of this token occurs in the Heraldic 

 Visitation of the County of Dorset for 1623, as being five years of 

 age at that time, and the son and heir of Morgan Hayne, of 

 Dorchester. The arms there given are, no doubt, the same as 

 those on the token ; argent, on a fess gules, three plates ; in 

 chief, a greyhound courant azure. I find, however, that Boyne 

 has assigned this token to Trim co: Meath, in Ireland (see No. 

 561, p. 573), and, no doubt, rightly so, as I have been informed 

 it is by no means an uncommon token there, and that members 

 of the Hayne family are yet to be found in co: Meath, their 

 ancestor having, no doubt, migrated from Dorchester in the 17th 

 century. But though an Irish token it has for the reasons above 

 stated a strong Dorset connection, which must plead as an excuse 

 for this discussion. 



Although, therefore, it would appear that we have no claim to 

 the possession of a penny token in the county, Dorset (as I have 

 said before) is unusually rich in town-pieces ; the boroughs that 

 issued tokens in their corporate capacity being Blandford, 

 Dorchester, Lyme Regis, Poole, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Wey- 



