The Smallest Mudlarking Finds often tell the Biggest Stories!

Many of my Thames mudlarking finds are very small, but this doesn’t mean they don’t have a big story to tell!  Last year I was delighted to find a 19th century wax seal stamp. The wooden handle has rotted away but what is left is the brass stamp embossed with a fouled anchor. The anchor is surrounded with the lettering “Commodore Superintendent Woolwich”.

It was an extremely windy and miserable day when I found it and at first, I thought it was a small naval button. The position of Commodore Superintendent at Woolwich Dockyard only existed between 1828 and 1853 and it is possible that all five of the Superintendents during that time could have used this stamp to seal their official letters and documents. According to the Finds Liaison Officer at the Museum of London, it would have been kept under lock and key and there would only have been one. During my research, I was delighted to find records of letters written by the Commodore Superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard to the Admiralty in 1852 relating to the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, the missing ships which set out on the expedition lead by Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage.  The Erebus and Terror were refitted at Woolwich Dockyard before the fated expedition. To be able to link the find to such a significant event was very exciting.

Another tiny find which taught me a great deal is a small pewter button. As any mudlark or detectorist will know, buttons are a common find in the field and on the foreshore. They can however reveal so much information particularly if they are marked with a name, a business, or a family crest. I have spent many happy hours going down rabbit holes simply through researching a small button. One of my favourite button finds is one from Victorian times which would have once been attached to the uniform of a guard from the notorious Millbank prison in London, which opened in 1821 and closed in 1890.