Gents Mag 1853 part 1 p.492

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	Gentleman's Magazine 1853 part 1 p.492 seal of the town. The seal is of silver, circular, and one inch and a half in diameter; it has the date 1576, being the year following that of a charter granted to the town by Queen Elizabeth, and its device is a view of the town - the same as is shown on the annexed shield. The dies of this token, much worn, were found in 1803, among the ruins of the New Biggin, where the company of Cordwainers had their hall, and they are now in the museum of the Natural History Society in Kendal. In 1659 two other farthing tokens were issued in Kendal by Oliver Plat and Edmond Adlington. 3. Oliver Plat was a gentleman of considerable property, both in Kendal and its neighbourhood, and lived on his estate at Summer How in Skelsmergh. The Rainbow inn in Kendal belonged to him; and an oak table and an oak panel, bearing the inscription (boldly carved), "O.P. x E.P. 1638," were discovered when the house was rebuilt about twenty-five years ago. Some other articles, bearing the same initials are preserved by Mr. John Fisher, jun. of Kendal. Mr. Plat was a Roman Catholic, and hence, probably, the use of the Maltese crosses. 4. Edmond Adlington displays the arms of the Dyers (as in London and elsewhere), Sable, a chevron between three bags of madder argent, corded or. Edmond Adlington was sworn as a shearman-dyer in the year 1649, and followed that business in 1655 and 1657, as evidenced in the corporation books. The family originally from Yealand in Lancashire, and carried on business there and at Kendal simultaneously. They were Quakers, and tradition says that Edmond was a man of immense bulk, weighing upwards of 24 stone, and that his wife was of little inferior weight, being upwards of 22 stone. He retired, and died, probably at his native place, at a great age. Francis Higginson, vicar of Kirkby Stephen, a pamphleteer against the early Quakers in the time of Cromwell, says that some of them stood naked upon the market cross on the market days, preaching from thence to the people; and particularly mentions the wife of one Edmond Adlington, of Kendal, who went naked through the streets there. The initial of the name of this over-zealous lady, "in virtue bold," accompanies that of her husband on the token, as we often find the case on these coins. 5. In 1666 the token here figured was issued by the company of Shearmen. The two implements it represents are now almost entirely disused, having been superseded by machinery, which does the work better and cheaper. The large shears were used by the croppers to cut all the long hairs off the cloth; and, unless great care and precision were applied, there was danger of cutting the cloth, so that none but experienced workmen were employed, and they earned great wages. During the Luddite riots in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1812, many of these artisans were implicated, some of them having been thrown out of employment by the improvements in manufacture, and many by their intemperate habits. The long hairs are now removed by a spiral thread fixed on a revolving cylinder, which gives a fine even nap to the cloth. The hand teasel brush, which appears on the reverse of the token,
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