Charles Roe built his Macclesfield copper works in 1758, later expanding into brass and making the town briefly one of the more significant non-ferrous metal processing centres in northern England. By 1792, the national shortage of regal copper coinage had grown acute enough that manufacturers across Britain were striking their own tokens — partly to pay workers, partly to fill a vacuum the Royal Mint had largely ignored for decades. Roe's works issued these halfpennies under that same pressure.
The Anglesey Druid tokens of Thomas Williams dominated the provincial copper trade by this point, and smaller issuers like the Macclesfield works were producing in far lower quantities.
Charles Roe built his Macclesfield copper works in 1758, later expanding into brass and making the town briefly one of the more significant non-ferrous metal processing centres in northern England. By 1792, the national shortage of regal copper coinage had grown acute enough that manufacturers across Britain were striking their own tokens — partly to pay workers, partly to fill a vacuum the Royal Mint had largely ignored for decades. Roe's works issued these halfpennies under that same pressure.
The Anglesey Druid tokens of Thomas Williams dominated the provincial copper trade by this point, and smaller issuers like the Macclesfield works were producing in far lower quantities.