All the Best Rubbish

by Ivor Noel Hume

  Although professional archaeologists were denied any further opportunity to save the Walbrook’s treasures, laborers employed on the site pocketed whatever they could pick up, and their take-home pay was considerably bolstered by the sale of coins and other small artifacts that they were able to sell as souvenirs in the neighborhood bars. The museum had long pursued a policy of paying workmen for salvaging artifacts, but it did so only with the prior concurrence of the landowners. It was not about to be party to the purchasing of stolen property. The artifacts from Bucklersbury House belonged to its owners, and they had a perfect right to dump them in the sea. Fortunately, however, two engineers working on the site gave what they picked up to the museum, while other finders and purchasers brought their goodies in for identification, and thus enabled an inventory to be made of what we knew to have been found. Much later, some items from one of the largest collections of privately excavated treasures from the site were presented to the City and received with florid expressions of gratitude by officials who had conveniently forgotten that the garnering of them had contributed to the loss of so much more.

  39. The course of the river Walbrook as first exposed in 1955. Most of the objects shown in Figure 38 came from the area in the foreground behind the gasoline-driven winch where some of the Roman oak revetment piles can be seen protruding from the bank.

  Crying over missed opportunities has long been one of the most popular antiquarian pastimes, and in 1873, when another stretch of the Walbrook was exposed during the construction of the London National Safe Deposit Company’s premises near the Mansion House, John E. Price, who was responsible for archaeological salvage work on the site, had this to say:

  There can be no question but that much has been overlooked, and that, had circumstances permitted, a more accurate investigation would have been of value and importance…. We institute researches abroad, sometimes on doubtful sites, and critically examine every shovelful of earth, often with no certain prospect of reward; but in a comparatively small space situate at home, and illustrative alike of the origin and progressive growth of this the chief city of the empire, sufficient interest has not been manifested to induce a properly organized investigation of any given site.5

  It was a plea that would go unheard in London for more than seventy years and an accusation that would be voiced in almost precisely the same terms nearly a century later before the city council of Alexandria, Virginia, when the Smithsonian Institution was being urged to support archaeological salvage on urban renewal sites rather than sponsoring excavations abroad. The outcome was both predictable and depressing.

  SIX

  Billie and Charlie and Margaret North

  IN HIS BOOK on Roman antiquities John Price complained that many objects offered to him as having been found on London construction sites had either been imported from abroad or were deliberate fakes. He was certainly not alone in making such charges, and because of these deceptions some of the most potentially significant European artifacts allegedly found in London and the Thames still have to be treated with caution if not downright disbelief. When he spoke of fakes, Price was almost certainly still smarting from the great “Billie and Charlie” caper of the 1850s, when two illiterates were apparently able to fool Britain’s most respected antiquaries and to manufacture an amazing array of forgeries, many of which are still circulating today.

  The story of Billie and Charlie began and ended in the London riverside slums that Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew so graphically recorded for the discomfort of comfortable Victorians. Amid the warehouses, the alleyways, and the green fog that swirled up them from the river mud lived the fictional Fagins, Bill Sikeses, and Nancys—as well as the real-life William Smith and Charles Eaton. These two eked out a precarious existence as shore-rakers, a term used to describe those who earned a muddy living cleaning the foreshores for the owners of Thames-side warehouses, and at the same time salvaging bits of coal, copper, rope, nails, and anything else they could pick up or steal. They were also known as “mudlarks,” a rather more romantic name since borrowed by collectors who, today, tread the same wet ground in search of the past.

  The Victorian mudlarks were also aware that ancient curiosities were to be found along the shores, and, as I have noted, they sold them to gentleman collectors like Roach Smith, Charles Layton, John Price, and others who wrote nothing and therefore are not remembered. Among the more interesting and easily recognizable relics to be found in the vicinity of London Bridge were cast lead badges worn in the caps of medieval pilgrims as souvenirs of their pious travels: Saint Catherine’s spiked wheel, the blessing of Saint Richard of Chichester, the heart of Saint Joseph of Arimathaea, the foot of Saint Victor of Marseilles, the mitered head of Saint Thomas a Becket of Canterbury, and a score of emblems from other less famous shrines at home and abroad (Fig. 40). Thus, in the fourteenth century, William Langland’s Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman described a pilgrim who had traveled as far afield as Bethlehem and Babylon, the proof of which, he reminded doubters, “Ye may se by my signes that sitten on myn hatte.”

  Just how the signs that sat on the pilgrims’ hats came to be in the river remains debatable, but the fact remains that they did, and when retrieved by the Victorian shore-rakers four centuries later, the badges probably did their finders more good than they had their original owners. Unfortunately, the collectors’ demand far outstripped the supply, and the large specimens that fetched the best prices and were easiest to spot soon became few and far between. It was a sad state of affairs to which I can personally attest, for in all my years of hunting I found only three small and battered examples—two broken Beckets and an Our Lady of Boulogne. Yet, suddenly, in 1857, a saintly miracle was visited upon the antiquarians of London; excavations for the new docks at Shadwell began to yield leaden pilgrim relics, bigger, better, and more desirable than any found before. What made the discoveries all the more remarkable was the fact that the docks were being built well down river from the medieval city limits in an area that had previously yielded no relics of any period, and which had no known connection with the route of the pilgrims. The connection, as it eventually turned out, was not between Shadwell and the pious pedestrians but between the new dock and Rosemary Lane, a street of tenements behind the Tower of London, wherein lived Messrs. Smith and Eaton. The two men were then employed as laborers digging out the dock, and it was they who were the first to “find” the Shadwell treasures. As word of the discoveries spread, collectors drove in hansom cabs to be shown the latest finds and to be assured by the seller that he “Just fished ’er aht not five minutes ago!” So remunerative did their charade become that Billie and Charlie soon delegated the “finding” to laborer friends who worked on a percentage basis, while they stayed at home in Rosemary Lane casting the products.

  40. Pewter badges like these from the Thames were worn by medieval pilgrims as souvenirs of the shrines they had visited. Top left: The foot of Saint Victor of Marseilles; center: the heart of Saint Joseph; right: the blessing of Saint Richard of Chichester; below left: the wheel of Saint Catherine; right: the shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, its height 3½ inches. Fifteenth century.

  How two illiterate laborers got into the business of faking medieval antiquities will never be known, any more than we can ever hope to explain the astonishing gullibility of the antiquarian world. The forgers’ first efforts were flat discs cast in two-piece molds, about three inches in diameter, and decorated with figures of saints (or perhaps kings) and surrounded by an indecipherable inscription and a date, usually a year between 1080 and about 1510 (Fig. 41). Not only did these objects bear some resemblance to genuine pilgrim badges, they also possessed an impressively ancient patina.

  Before long, comparable but more elaborately molded leaden “antiquities” began to turn up on building sites elsewhere in London—reliquaries containing reclining figures of saints, intricately decorated mace heads, hollow-cast figures of Babylonian-style kings, and even an occasional dagg
er cast in brass, the hilt in the shape of a titillatingly naked goddess in bold relief (Fig. 42). All found a ready market and were carried off by delighted purchasers, eventually to be shown to hopefully jealous friends. Soon, however, the response “You mean, like mine?” became disturbingly commonplace, and in 1858, at a meeting of the British Archaeological Association, its president, Syer Cummings, announced that he considered these newfound treasures to be fakes. He went on to charge that many of them had been bought from a dealer who knew them to be spurious. Cummings’s speech was reported in the Athenaeum, where it was read by an antique dealer named Eastwood who promptly sued the periodical for libel.

  41. A typical “Billie and Charlie” medallion cast in lead and decorated on one side with a head that could belong to a saint or a late Roman emperor, and on the other with a pair of standing figures. Diameter 3 inches.

  42. More fake antiquities attributed to Billie and Charlie. Left, a wise man or some such patriarchal figure; center, a barbarian; right, a shrine containing a recumbent figure. All three are of lead. Below, a brass dagger, its hilt in the shape of a female nude; length 9½ inches.

  The action was brought before the Guildford assizes in August, 1858, and was attended by a crowd of the most respected and learned antiquaries—as well as a good many dealers who had a more than passing interest in the outcome. In his opening testimony, Eastwood declared himself to be an authority on medieval relics and said he was satisfied that the London discoveries were genuine. He added that more than a thousand had passed through his hands and that he had paid about £350 for them. William “Billie” Smith told the court that he had found, or acquired from fellow laborers, about two thousand relics and that he had sold them for £400. His partner, Charlie, did not testify; he had recently married, and the court was told that his wife would not let him attend.

  It was beholden upon the plaintiff to prove the Athenaeum to be wrong, and to that end the dealer was able to marshal some of the biggest guns in London’s antiquarian circle. Charles Roach Smith took the stand to testify that in his educated opinion the objects in question were “genuine relics of antiquity,” adding that in spite of the wide range of dates embossed on them, he considered them all to have been made in the sixteenth century. Another leading antiquary supported him but thought the relics to be older. Inexplicably, the sample shown to the court was different from the rest of the Rosemary Lane products and the waters were muddied by the learned gentlemen’s inability to identify it. The record shows that the best they could offer was that it was a “model of some ancient extinguisher.” Before the trial could go any further and before any defense witnesses were called, the judge ruled that as the Athenaeum had merely reported Syer Cummings’s remarks without editorial comment, there was no case to answer.

  The court had failed to rule on the authenticity of the disputed objects, yet distinguished voices had been heard in favor of them, and none in opposition. Thus, the outcome was quite satisfactory enough to send Billie and Charlie back to work with new enthusiasm. Syer Cummings, on the other hand, was not ready to give up, and he and another Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Charles Reed, began to employ spies to watch Smith and Eaton, spies who reported that at no time did they see either man finding anything while raking the foreshore or digging on construction sites. This was what Cummings wanted to hear, but in retrospect it raises some unanswered questions. Why were Billie and Charlie back at their old menial and poorly rewarded labors when they had made the princely sum of £400 from previous sales and when business was never better? More important, why did nearly a year go by without Cummings being able to learn anything that connected the men to the forgeries? At the end of it, however, a laborer engaged in laying sewers in the City approached Reed with a collection of pottery and other artifacts which he claimed to have found. Among them were examples of “Billie and Charlie” medallions. When questioned, the laborer admitted that he had not dug them up but had obtained them directly from Smith and Eaton. Suitably bribed, he agreed to try to worm his way into the forgers’ confidence and to gain admission to the factory. He did so, and when he left, some of the molds went with him. They were subsequently exhibited by Cummings at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries—much, one supposes, to the chagrin of Roach Smith.

  Although Cummings’s evidence could not be denied, collectors were slow to admit that they had been duped, and the entrepreneurs of Rosemary Lane did not immediately go out of business. On the contrary, they seem to have continued at least until the death of Charlie in 1870. In the same year Syer Cummings took another swing at the old firm, exhibiting what he described as “a new type of forgery, made last September by William Monk, of the late notorious [partnership] of ‘Billie and Charlie.’” Cummings’s reference to Monk was no slip of the tongue, for in referring to Charlie, he observed that “bad as this fellow was, he was an honourable man in comparison with his co-partner, William Monk.” The answer may be that Billie used an alias, or that Charlie later obtained a new partner. Either way it is a less troubling problem than the question of how two mudlarks could have acquired the technical skill to cast many of the highly intricate objects that are attributed to them, and how they could have known enough about medieval relics to design them—all without being able to read or write. There remains the intriguing possibility that what we do not know about the Rosemary Lane gang may be more astonishing than what we do.

  Today, most serious collectors of antiquities can recognize a “Billie and Charlie” at fifty paces, though many of the new breed of stall-holding, hole-in-the-wall dealers apparently do not (or hope that we do not), and Rosemary Lane products are still sold as “genuine relics of antiquity.” Since, however, the United States Customs Service has decreed that any object needs only to be a century old to be classified as an antique, “Billies and Charlies” can at last claim a genuine measure of respectability. If corroboration be needed, I can relate that some months after the preceding sentence was drafted (and qualified by perhapses and possiblys), I found myself making cocktail-party small talk with a local Virginia realtor and an English antique dealer on a brief visit to Williamsburg. Both proved to be “Billie and Charlie” collectors, neither had met the other before, neither knew that I, too, shared their interest, and both expressed astonishment that anyone but he should take these Victorian oddities seriously. But they do, and nowadays the better and more complicated specimens command sufficiently respectable prices to be given lot room at Sotheby’s or Christie’s. The ultimate mark of acceptance, of course, is to be copied, or, as the antiquarian marketers would have it, to be reproduced. “Billie and Charlie” medallions enjoyed that distinction when, in 1963, a British magazine offered copies described as exact reproductions of those “the Crusaders used to wear,” calling them an “up-to-the-minute fashion—and so versatile!”1

  Rivers of deceit have always ebbed and flowed around the pillars of integrity, and while Billie and Charlie were going through the fiction of fishing relics out of the Thames, honest tradesmen were throwing other forgeries back into it. Forging the king’s (or the queen’s) coin was a relatively common means of improving one’s lot in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and consequently a great many spurious coins of every denomination were in circulation, most of them visually very convincing. It was only when dropped that they clunked. When an honest man found himself stuck, it was his responsibility to take the coin out of circulation and to absorb the loss. It was also common sense, for passing dud coins was a serious offense. At least half of the high “value” coins that I found in the Thames were forgeries and must have been deliberately thrown away. Most of them came from the vicinity of Billingsgate fish market and included sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns of George III, George IV, Victoria, and one half-crown of George V that dated as recently as 1924 (Fig. 43). The quality of their detail was uniformly excellent, occasioned in part by the need to fool the public and in part to protect the forger, for the crime of coining was classified as petty tr
eason and until the nineteenth century the penalty was a most unpleasant death.

  In 1794, diarist John Stedman noted that “Our civil laws are altered for the better of late. No malefactors to be crushed to death for want of pleading, and no more women to be burnt for coining as formerly, but to be hang’d to the gallows as men.”2 The law had actually been changed in 1789, one year after the last woman had been burned before the debtors’ door of Newgate Prison. However, it was only treason to forge British coins, and it was not until 1797 that the law was amended to make it an offense to counterfeit foreign money. Consequently, there had long been a lucrative London export business in fake French louis d’or, German florins, Spanish dollars, Turkish sequins, and Indian pagodas. For the home market, and for the hawkers, market women, and hackney coach drivers who were the principal passers of dud coins, English low denominations changed hands most easily. Sometimes the nervous coiner tried to get over the treason hurdle by changing the name around the royal portrait so that he could claim that he was not copying English halfpennies. Two of the forgeries that I found on the Southwark shore of the Thames were dated 1771 and bore the name BRUTUS SEXTUS instead of the normal GEORGIVS•III•REX (Fig. 43). Such neat prevarications were rare, nevertheless, and the vast majority of counterfeit coins were straight copies of the current specie, made in the wrong metal if they were supposed to be of gold or silver, or thinner and lighter when they were of copper denominations. So widespread was this last practice that in the 1770s it was estimated that half the copper coins then in circulation were forgeries, and excavations on American colonial sites suggest that the same was true wherever British coinage was used.