British Tokens

17th Century Tokens, Sussex, Cliffe, Mary Akehurst, Halfpenny, 1667, 1.29g/12h (N 5213; BW. 73). Fair £30-40

Provenance: Property of a Lady, Spink Auction 51, 16 April 1986, lot 177 (part); SCMB October 1986 (M 250).

Mary Akehurst, widow of Ralph Akehurst, Quaker. Sold with further detail from D. Hitchin, Quakers in Lewes, 2010, which refers to the cruelty inflicted by Ralph, ‘a wicked tyrant’ on Mary because of her faith; Ralph kept her chained in a room of their large house at Cliffe. Mary survived her many ordeals at the hands of her husband and entertained the famous Quaker William Penn at her house in 1672. She was fined the enormous sum of £7 5s for attending the foundation meeting of the Society of Friends in Lewes in August 1675 and was prosecuted for tithes in 1677, serving a year in Horsham gaol. Her two sons, Ralph and Thomas, were also punished by the authorities for being Quakers on several occasions and in a gross miscarriage of justice when Thomas proved he was not at a Quaker meeting, she was blamed instead and excommunicated by John Eresby, vicar of Lewes. Eresby caused her to serve another seven months in Horsham gaol for her faith in July 1687 even though ‘in a very weak condition’, after which she was committed to the Kings Bench prison in London