Middlesex token, 1789-1800.

Token, copper, 28mm diameter. Middlesex token, late 18th century. (DH Mddx 676). Issuer Thomas Spence, date unknown (probably early 1790s). Obverse Sun with inset inscription ‘Spence’s Plan Nov. 8 1775’ and ‘Spence’s glorious plan is parochial partnership in land without private landlordism’. Reverse Cornucopia, scales and olive branch and ‘This just plan will produce everlasting peace and happiness or in fact the millennium (sic)’. Notes Spence, a bookseller and coin dealer, moved from Newcastle upon Tyne to London in 1792 and began political agitation. After several arrests and imprisonment he died in 1814 aged 64 while working to promote his radical views in support of the Luddites.