It is likely that this token relates to David Hodwell, 23, who was tried and convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 4 January 1836 for breaking and entering Harriet Hodwell’s (his sister-in-law’s) house in Brewer’s Lane, Hampstead, on 13 November 1835, and stealing a number of items that he later attempted to pawn.

When his sister-in-law was re-examined and asked to identify the stolen items, she responded: ‘This is my gown — I know it, having stained it with blackberries — this cape belongs to it — the shirt was my husband’s — he was killed in it, and I have lined it with calico’. Hodwell responded: ‘I am innocent of everything they have been saying’. He was sentenced to transportation for life and sailed for New South Wales on the Norfolk on 27 October 1836, arriving 12 February 1837.