DORSET SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TOKENS. 53 



The principal authorities for Dorset tokens beyond the British 

 Museum and the Bodleian collections are the three plates in the 

 first volume of the third and last edition of Hutchins's History of 

 Dorset, and the list of tokens that also appears therein. With 

 regard to the former, the first two plates were presented by Dr. 

 Cuming, F.S.A., to whom our county historian was greatly 

 indebted for his assistance in bringing out the first publication of 

 his work in 1774. Two of the tokens, however, there described 

 are wrongly classed amongst those of Dorset ; namely, that of 

 William Lodge, of Beare, and that of George Reeve, of Milton. 

 It is clear that the first named should be Bedale, co. Yorks, and 

 is so assigned by Boyne in his book. With regard to the 

 latter, there might be more reason for doubt, but as the only 

 Milton in Dorset of sufficient importance to have issued tokens was 

 Milton Abbas, and as the full name appears on all the tokens known 

 to have been issued there, I think Boyne was again right in 

 assigning it to Milton, near Gravesend, co. Kent, which was a town 

 of some importance at that time. 



With regard to the list of tokens (by whom drawn up I know 

 not) given in the last edition of Hutchins, though a more recent 

 authority than Dr. Cuming's plates, it is drawn up so carelessly 

 that no less than eighty mistakes or omissions have been corrected 

 or filled in by myself in my own copy of Hutchins ! 



Beyond the materials to be obtained from public sources the late 

 Mr. Boyne must have relied largely upon information afforded to 

 him by private collectors and friends. He had besides a very fine 

 collection of his own, and on the dispersal of that collection some 

 few years ago I was enabled to secure those that he had belonging 

 to the county of Dorset. This naturally gave a great impetus to 

 my own collection, with the result that I was able to present the 

 Dorset County Museum with close upon fifty of my duplicates 

 that were new to it. 



In conclusion I may say that an instance of the greater interest 

 that is now taken in these old tokens of the seventeenth century, 

 and in the people who issued them, and a proof that a new edition of 



