1/2 Penny Hampshire - Emsworth / Earl Howe

Emsworth's 1794 halfpenny token was issued during the great provincial copper famine that paralyzed small commerce across Britain after the Royal Mint effectively abandoned regal copper coinage for decades. Richard Howe, the admiral honored here, had just months earlier commanded the Channel Fleet to victory over the French at the Glorious First of June — the first major naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars. The timing was deliberate; local merchants understood that a fresh celebrity on a token moved copper into circulation faster than an anonymous issue.

Dalton & Hamer's reference 18 places this among the more precisely documented Hampshire pieces.