Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth centuryGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth century
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
The numbers engaged in these nefarious practices were very great. In
1692, information was given of three hundred coiners and clippers
dispersed in various parts of the city, for several of whom warrants
were issued, some by the Treasury, others by the Lord Chief Justice.
The profits were enormous. Of three clippers executed at Tyburn in
1696, one, John Moore, "the tripe-man," was said to have got a good
estate by clipping, and to have offered £6,000 for his pardon. Three
other clippers arrested in St. James's St., and committed to Newgate,
were found to be in possession of £400 in clippings, with a pair of
shears and other implements. The information of one Gregory, a butcher,
who "discovered" near a hundred persons concerned in the trade, went to
prove that they made as much as £6,000 a month in counterfeit money.
"All their utensils and moulds were shown in court, the latter being
in very fine clay, which performed with great dexterity." The extent
of the practice is shown by the ingenuity of the machinery used. "All
sorts of material for coining was found in a house in Kentish town,
with stamps for all coins from James I." The work was performed "with
that exactness no banker could detect the counterfeit." So bold were
the coiners, that the manufacture went forward even within the walls
of Newgate. Three prisoners were taken in the very act of coining
in that prison. One of the medals or tokens struck in Newgate as a
monetary medium among the prisoners is still to be seen in the Beaufoy
Collection at Guildhall. Upon the obverse of the coin the legend is
inscribed: "Belonging to the cellar on the master's side, 1669;" on the
reverse side is a view of Newgate and the debtors' prison.
The heaviest penalties did not check this crime. The offence was high
treason; men sentenced for it were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and
women were burnt. In 1683 Elizabeth Hare was burnt alive for coining
in Bunhill Fields. Special legislation could not cope with this crime,
and to hinder it the Lords of the Treasury petitioned Queen Mary
(in the absence of William III) to grant no pardon to any sentenced
for clipping unless before their conviction they discovered their
accomplices.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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