William Chaloner (1650 – 22 March 1699) was a serial counterfeit coiner and confidence trickster, who was imprisoned in Newgate Prison several times and eventually proven guilty of high treason by Sir Isaac Newton, Warden of the Royal Mint. He was hanged on the gallows at Tyburn on 22 March 1699.
Chaloner grew up in a poor family in Warwickshire, but through a career in counterfeiting and con artistry attained great wealth, including a house in Knightsbridge. He started by forging "Birmingham Groats", then moved on to Guineas, French Pistoles, crowns and half-crowns, Banknotes and lottery tickets. At various times he also made and sold dildos and worked as a quack doctor, soothsayer, and sham anti-Jacobite "agent provocateur" to collect government rewards. In Guzman Redivivus, a posthumous biography published anonymously in 1699, it was stated that "scorning the 'petty Rogueries of Tricking single Men', he aimed rather at 'imposing upon a whole Kingdom'.
Early life and scams
Chaloner was born in Warwickshire in 1650, the son of a weaver. His parents had great difficulty controlling him, so he was apprenticed to a nail maker in Birmingham, a town notorious for coining. At this time groats (worth four pennies) were in short supply, so the forged "Birmingham groat" constituted a significant proportion of the national coinage. Chaloner, a quick learner, became skilled in their production.
He soon demonstrated his ambition and, sometime in the 1680s, walked to London. The Craftsmens' Guild system prevented him finding gainful work, so he established himself by manufacturing and hawking "tin watches" containing dildos (Tin Watches, with D-does &c in 'em.) to cater for the sexually adventurous age. Thomas Levenson stated in Newton and the Counterfeiter that as early as 1660, two years after Oliver Cromwell’s death, "there were reports of imported Italian dildos being sold on St James's Street".)
Next he became a quack doctor and soothsayer. According to the anonymous, posthumous 1699 biography Guzman Redivivus:
According to the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography "He may have been the 'William Chaloner' who on 31 March 1684 married Katharine Atkinson at St Katharine's by the Tower, and he had several children. This relatively respectable period of Chaloner's life ended when he was suspected of robbery and forced to flee his lodgings." His "trick" for recovering stolen property was "to steal it in the first place". As a result, he made his first appearance in the public record in 1690, as a suspect in a burglary case. But the "tongue-pudding" and the knack for playing two sides against each other were established as hallmarks of his increasingly large-scale criminal enterprises.
By early 1690 he was working as a japanner where he probably learned and practised the gilding process.
Coining scams
English currency was in disarray in the late 17th century. Hand-struck silver coins from prior to 1662 had been clipped around the edges and thus their value (weight) reduced so that they were no longer a viable tender, especially abroad. The machine-struck silver coins produced by the Royal Mint in the Tower of London after 1662 were protected from clipping by an engraved, decorated and milled edge, but were instead forged, both by casting from counterfeit moulds and by die stamping from counterfeit dies. By 1696 forged coins constituted about 10% of the nation's currency.
The currency had a third problem: its value as silver bullion in Paris and Amsterdam was greater than the face value in London. Vast quantities of coins were melted and shipped abroad — an arbitrage market. New Acts of Parliament were passed in order to create the Bank of England and protect national military security. This situation prompted William Lowndes of the Treasury to ask Isaac Newton for help.
Chaloner was part of one of the many coining gangs that existed. He was taught the subtle techniques of moulding "milled edges" and counterfeiting coins by Patrick Coffey, a goldsmith. Thomas Taylor, a master engraver and printer, made the dies. In 1691, Chaloner produced French Pistoles worth about 17 shillings each, using an alloy of silver. Then he produced English guineas that were gilded by Patrick Coffey and Chaloner's own brother-in-law Joseph Gravener. The chain was completed by Thomas Holloway and his wife who passed the coins to petty crooks for circulation.
Chaloner was renowned in the coining community for the quality of his work and his prolific success. He purchased a large house in the semi-rural suburb of Knightsbridge, rode in a carriage, bought plate and dressed like a gentleman.
Isaac Newton noted that Chaloner was: