Token - 1/2 Penny - Christ`s Hospital Middlesex

Christ's Hospital — the Blue Coat School — issued copper tokens during the token shortage of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the Royal Mint had so catastrophically neglected small-denomination coinage that private and institutional issues flooded commerce. The school had operated in Newgate Street since 1553, though by 1800 it was preparing for its 1902 relocation to Horsham — a move nearly a century in the planning.

Dalton & Hamer 278 places this among a small run of institutionally issued pieces rather than commercial trader tokens, suggesting internal circulation within the school's economy rather than general street use.