ADVENT COINS: ON THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM

On the Road to Bethlehem

This week we are on the way to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is where the young couple travelled to because the Emperor had made a ruling that everyone had to go to their home town for a census. It was probably a government ruse to raise more taxes. We have got used to obeying government decrees this year and like the good citizen he was, Joseph, went there, knowing that it would be busy at Christmas time.

So this week are on the way to Bethlehem, no, not the Bethlehem in the Holy Land but a Bethlehem in London. Perhaps you did not know there was a Bethlehem in London. There are also two in Wales and elsewhere but as far as I know they did not mint coins (unless you know different!).

In 1247 a hospital was founded as the Priory of the New Order of our Lady of Bethlehem during the reign of Henry III. The hospital may have started as a hostel for travellers to stay and as a centre for the collection of donations to support the Crusader Church, but it also became a place for ill people to be looked after and then developed into a centre for people with mental illness. The word Bethlehem was shortened to "bedlam" which word also now means a place of disorder and chaos. Originally the hospital was near Bishopsgate just outside the walls of the City of London and gave its name to the area.

The hospital has moved several times, in 1930 to the London suburbs and the hospital was absorbed into the National Health Service in 1948. The Bethlem Royal Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Beckenham, South East London. It is the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world, dating back to 1247.

In the Seventeenth Century a number of copper tokens were issued by local traders which name Bedlam as the place they were associated with. These include,

James Reddall of the Plough in Bedlam, Bishopsgate Without

IAMES REDDALL AT
around a plough
THE PLOW IN BEDLAM (note the spelling – not the modern English way)
Around initials I R S

THOMAS BONNY AT THE
Clothworkers' Arms
Reverse
IN BEDLAM HIS HALFE PENNY
1667

1662 London W.189, Old Bethlem, Thomas Leare, Farthing Token

Thanks to Charles Riley for assistance
http://www.charlesriley.co.uk/

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
ADVENT COINS: A GAME OF THRONES (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n48a25.html)
ADVENT COINS: JOHN THE BAPTIST (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n49a28.html)

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