PAS Finds (w/e 29/03/24) – Kings Arms, Chatham
It has been a quiet couple of weeks at the PAS for finds with an interesting back story. This week I saw a token from a public house and these always have potential as more records exist, events tend to happen near or in pubs and the pub could well still exist. Sadly, not the case for the token in our Featured Find.
Featured Find
Token of Robert Smith of the Kings Arms, Chatham
On the obverse, the legend reads ROBERT SMITH AT YE OLD, around the Kings Arms. It continues on the reverse, IN CHATHAM 1671 around HIS / HALF / PENNY / R.I.S.
Robert served in the navy and married Mary Phinnes in 1640. The “R.I.S.” on the reverse suggests that he remarried at some point. He died in 1672, one year after this token was issued.1
Chatham was the site of a Royal Navy Dockyard and the local brewers, Best of Chatham, received regular commissions for beer from the Admiralty2. There is a story of a Captain Robert Smith searching “the smiths houses and other suspicious places for embezzled ironwork at Chatham“3 and with our Robert Smith being a navy man, this could be him but as it’s a relatively common name, it might well not be.
Unfortunately, the Kings Arms was ravaged by a fire in the 1990s and was eventually demolished in 2002.
The site is currently being redeveloped into a block of luxury apartments.