East Riding Museums

Copper token. Obverse: Male head facing right, legend ' J.H. Tooke Esq. 1794, tried for high treason'. Reverse: 'Acquitted by his jury, counsel Hon. T. Erskine V. Gibbs Esq.' John Horne Tooke was one of three men put on trial separately by the government of William Pitt in 1794, as part of a campaign against British radicals, the context being the French revolution and the British establishment's fear that such sentiments might spread to this country. Although Horne (and the others) were all acquitted, the Government crackdown against any form of political/social dissent (however mildly expressed) continued and it would not be until the Great Reform Act of 1832 that siginificant progress would be made in reforming Britain's political system and widening democracy.