1/2 Penny Middlesex - Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy the radical shoemaker, not the novelist. This token was issued during the conder token boom of the 1790s, when chronic government neglect of small-denomination coinage had left tradesmen and manufacturers effectively minting their own money out of necessity. Hardy was secretary of the London Corresponding Society, founded in 1792 to agitate for parliamentary reform and universal male suffrage — and was tried for high treason in 1794, the very year this piece was struck. He was acquitted, to enormous public celebration.

The timing is not incidental. Conder tokens frequently carried political messaging, and Hardy's association with radical politics makes this issue one of the more charged pieces in the Middlesex series.