Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals

Tickets and Checks (Post-1830), Douglas, Railway Hotel, [Charles Udall], brass Twopence by Coward & Co, Liverpool [1876], legend, rev. value, edge grained, 27mm, 5.67g/12h (Quarmby 100; Mackay 146; Hawkins –; cf. Cain 2805; cf. Guard 517). Very fine and very rare £150-200

Charles Udall (c. 1839-96), originally from North Wingfield, Derbyshire, and still shown in the 1871 census as living there as a plumber, had bought the Castle Hill brewery in 1868 and he funded the cost of the Railway Hotel in Bridge road, built in 1873 with a name that reflected the opening of the railway lines from Douglas to Port Erin and to Peel. The hotel was a highly successful speculation and apparently half of the cost was recouped within the 4 years of Udall’s tenancy, 1874-7. Udall sold the brewery in 1879 and then went on to acquire an interest in the Villiers Hotel, which he managed from 1877-89. He used his interest in the Railway Hotel and the Villiers to speculate in a London venture, the Mona Hotel, but was declared bankrupt in the City in 1892 and returned to his family in Douglas. A.R. Coward was a seal engraver who traded as Coward & Co for a single year, 1876, from 64 Cable street, Liverpool (Alan Kelly, pers. comm.)