WORKMAN’S FIND

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1929, Page 8

WORKMAN’S FIND

OLD COIN AND CLAY PIPES. EVACUATIONS IN SYDNEY. School teachers with a weakness for asking pupils to'write the “autdbiogt raphy” of a penny when inspiration for an essay subject is lacking would probably !be into rented in the stoiy of a coin discovered by workmen at the rear of Dalwood Arcade, 76 Pitt street. It was copper penny coined during the reign / of George the Third, and bearing a 1797 date.

Such coins arc not uncommon and Mr W. W. Thorpe, of the Australian Museum, states that they were current during the early days of the colony, often passing for twopence, when currency was scarce. Workmen found the coin, ivhilo they were lowering the grade of a paved courtyard. How the coin found its way two feet below the paving is an interesting speculation. In the same yard the men uncoverer numbers of clay pipes, some cast in the shape of a man’s head, and others decorated on the sides with sailing ships, anchors, harps, and other devices. Mr C. H. Bertie, .an authority on old Sydney, states that the site of the discovery approximate the site of the White Horse commission and livery stables, kept in 1848 by Mr W. Davis, while adjaeant to the stables was an old cottage reputed to have been a Government House.

Since, the piptes had apparently, not been smoked and were found in such largo quantities, it is not likely that they were cast off by the livery stable hands. The fact that on the opposite side of the road there was once a pottery kept by a man named Skinner may be revelent but how the pipes reached the spot where they were found, if they were made by Mr Skinnier, remains a matter for conjecture.