CV's 18th Century Provincial Tokens of Great Britian
F-1

Owner Comments:

Spence's (ND) Garden of Eden farthing

REFERENCE: Middlesex D&H 1088
DIAMETER:
WEIGHT:
COMPOSITION: copper
DIESINKER: James
MANUFACTURER:
RARITY:

OBVERSE: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, "JAMES" below; "MAN OVER MAN HE MADE NOT LORD"
REVERSE: pig facing left trampling royal and church symbols, radiate cap above; "PIGS MEAT PUBLISHED BY T. SPENCE LONDON - - "
EDGE: plain

Thomas Spence was a schoolteacher from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Soon after arriving in London in late 1792 he was arrested for selling Tomas Paine's "Rights of Man". Undeterred by this experience he spent long periods of time in prison for selling radical books, pamphlets, newspapers and broadsheets upto his death in 1814. During 1793-1796 he published a periodical entitled "One Penny Worth of Pig’s Meat: Lessons for the Swinish Multitude" (a reference to Burke’s savage description of the British masses as “the swinish multitude”) advocating universal suffrage and land nationalization. Spence also described himself as 'the unfee'd Advocate of the disinherited seed of Adam' which might explain appearance of the Garden of Eden on this particular token.