Owner Comments:
Purchased on 3/21/2012.
This is an undated halfpenny token, issued for William Waterhouse's London (Middlesex) Mail Coach Office
Obverse: Two headed swan: “PAYABLE AT THE MAIL COACH OFFICE LAD LANE LONDON W. W”.
Reverse: Stagecoach galloping to left: “SPEED. REGULARITY & SECURITY”.
Edge: Milled
Issued by William Waterhouse, the proprietor of the “Swan with Two Necks” Tavern in Lad Lane, London. He operated mail and passenger coaches all over Britain. This undated halfpenny depicts the sign of the Inn which had been the arrival point for the Palmer's historic journey and was subsequently a main London terminus for Mail Coaches. A main contractor's office was there and also route sub-contractors. The two necks is thought to have originated from a swan with two nicks on the beak for ownership. Davis (1904) gave the impression that this was the King's mark, but Withers (1999) tells us it was used by the Company of Vintners, the Monarch's swans being unmarked.
W.W. the issuer was assigned to the Inn proprietor by some or to William Waterhouse a mail contractor by others. An article in 1986 by the great-great-great grandson of Waterhouse, who is not a numismatist, gives some detail and documentary references in support of his ancestor who was the main Mails contractor from 1792 to at least 1828. The coach on the reverse has the Royal Mail cypher. Besant the patentee had died in 1791 and his partner John Vidler continued the contract. He was followed by his sons in 1810. who continued the supply of coaches and their daily servicing. Trains began to take the business from 1830 onward and the last Mail coach ran to Norwich in 1846.
The Swan with Two Necks can be traced back as far as the 1630s as an Inn, later a pub, and later still a coach waypoint. By 1867, the business had closed, and the original buildings were demolished sometime in the late 1800s. To this day, several pubs by the same name have surfaced, not just in England, but in many parts of the world.