The 1795 River Stort Navigation Token .....
Due to a national shortage of small denomination coinage in the late eighteenth century, many companies were forced to issue their own coinage. These were known as tokens and were redeemable for conventional money. In 1795 Sir George Jackson issued such a token valued one penny, for use on the Stort Navigation. The Stort Penny was struck at the Soho Mint in Birmingham by Matthew Boulton on a James Watt steam powered press. It is not known how many tokens were minted, but a small number still exist.
Several versions of the token have been found, one design has a plain rim another with the words " payable at Bishops Stortford".
Side 1 the arms depicted are a combination of the Jackson and Duckett families. Sir George taking his wife's maiden name to secure her inheritance. The birds are sheldrakes and are the arms of the Jackson family, and the St Andrew's crosses and the scraps of lavender are the Duckett arms. The hand signifies a Baronet and the Latin motto translates " I would rather suffer than defile.
Side 2 has a pictorial view of the River Stort , with a horse drawn barge. The River Stort flows through Little Hallingbury by Hallingbury Mill from Sawbridgeworth to Spellbrook and on to Bishops Stortford.
Sir George Duckett Bart.
Sir George Jackson was Judge Advocate of the Fleet and MP successively of Weymouth, Melcombe Regis and Colchester. He changed his name to Duckett in 1797 under the terms of a will. He was sole proprietor of the Stort Navigation which ran from Bishops Stortford to the River Lee and which opened in 1767. He also built the short Hertford Union or Duckett's Canal, which linked the Lee to the Regents Canal. He died in 1822 at the age of 97. The magnificent token shows a perspective view of the navigation with a horse towing a barge and on the reverse Sir George's arms. The diesinker was Kuchler and the manufacturer Matthew Boulton at Soho.
Sir George Duckett (formerly Jackson), first baronet, naval administrator and judge, was born 24 October 1725, probably in Yorkshire. He was the third but oldest surviving son of George Jackson (1687/8–1758) of Hill House, Richmond, Yorkshire, and Hannah, daughter of William Ward of Guisborough, Yorkshire. George entered the Navy Office as clerk to the clerk of the acts in 1743. In 1755 he became chief clerk to the clerk of the acts, and from 1758 to 1766 was assistant clerk of the acts. On the recommendation of prime minister, William Pitt, he was then transferred to the admiralty as second secretary to the board and first clerk of the marine department. In 1768 he was made judge advocat of the fleet, a position he held until his death. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (1786–1788), and Colchester. He gained the Colchester seat with government support in 1788, and though unseated on petition, regained the seat at the 1790 election and held it until the 1796 election.
In 1759, Thomas Adderley (landlord of the Crown Inn at Hockerill) succeeded in gaining an act of parliament to make the river Stort navigable. The plan failed through lack of finance, but when Jackson heard of this he stepped in to help. He and two others sat as commissioners for a new Act in 1766 ,then saw to it that enough financiers were in place to make the project a reality. The Stort Navigation was completed in 1769. Thanks to the sizable inheritence left him by his wife's uncle in 1797, he bought out the other financiers of the Navigation to become principle shareholder. George Jackson was held in such high regard by all associated with the Navigation, that many of the Lock Keepers' cottages proudly displayed a badge or door plaque bearing his initials. At least two of these are said to survive.
In Bishop's Stortford, both his surnames are remembered: first in Duckett's Wharf, a large housing and office development in (lower) South Street that is built partly on the original riverside wharf of the same name; and in the town's Jackson Square shopping centre. His name is also perpetuated on the other side of the world: Point Jackson in New Zealand and Port Jackson in New South Wales, Australia – better known as Sydney harbour. Both were named in his honour by his protégé, Captain James Cook, who set sail in the Endeavour in 1768 to chart the Southern Seas.
Cook's father was an agricultural labourer from Marton, North Yorkshire, and had been a dependant of the Jackson family. James became a stable-boy in George Jackson's sister's household at Ayton, Yorkshire. It was there that the influential Jackson gave the boy every encouragement to join the Royal Navy, which he did in 1743, and, as we now know, rose rapidly through the ranks to become one our most famous sea captains and explorers.
Sir George built and owned Wharf House in the Causeway but seldom stayed there, preferring instead his other homes in Roydon and London. Despite this, the town meant a great deal to him and his greatest wish was to be buried in St Michael's Churchyard. When he died at his London Home in Upper Grosvenor Street in 1822, aged 97, (he was said to be the oldest householder in London), that wish was fulfilled. His epitaph there simply reads: 'Sir George Duckett Bart, Died 15th December 1822, Aged 97'.
Such was the gratitude of the town for what both Sir George and Thomas Adderley did, each has a memorial dedicated to them inside St Michael's Church. Some of the notes that Sir George (Jackson) Duckett kept, recording the events of the Navigation's construction, are now in the British Museum
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