Towneley from A to Z
Towneley from A to Z
The numismatics collection includes coins, bank notes and tokens used instead of government coins.
There are over 2,000 coins from every continent including ancient Greek and Roman coins.
The Museum collection of coins began in 1906 with late 17th century crowns and half-crowns found locally,near Heasandford. They were declared as treasure trove and presented to Towneley by the Duchy of Lancaster. No more treasure trove has found its way to Towneley but many people have donated small numbers of coins. There have also been some larger donations. The first of these was in 1908 when Mrs Rawcliffe presented a collection of 178 coins including Roman coins from a Republican silver denarius and coins of most of the Emperors up to Constantius II. The coins accumulated since then covers both English coins from Henry III and coins from around the world. There have been no addition to the collection since 1985.
Mainly foreign bank notes, dating from 1898 to 1949.
The collection of bank notes was started with a donation of obsolete German, Polish and Austrian money by Mr. John Tattersall of Enschede, Holland in 1926. The earliest item in the collection is a one guinea Bank of Huddersfield of 1791. There are notes from most parts of the world but the majority are 20th century and European. The most recent notes from the Philippines and are dated 1949.
Tokens were often issued in a local area and used instead of government coins.
Many of the items in the Museum's collection of tokens were collected by Dr. Wright of Burnley in the 1920s. There are around 200 18th century English tokens covering most counties and also approximately 40 covering Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Tokens continued to be used into the 19th century and the collection includes around 50 from the period up to 1815. Most of these tokens had a face value of a penny or a halfpenny but one for "Whitby Association" dated 1811 is made of silver and has a face value of one shilling.
As well as local tokens from Accrington, Burnley and Rochdale (e.g. Co-op. Society), the collection has examples from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA. There are also around 30 gambling tokens. There have been no additions to the collection since 1980.
The coins, tokens and bank notes were probably all added to the accession registers before 1970 with only two coins and one token added after 1970. None of the items were given an object number - as of 2016 nothing has been added to the Modes database.