THE LIFE OF GEORGE GLOVER, " FORGER." 193
Centaurea Solstitialis Linn. Rainham, Dagenham, R. Melville.
Little Dunmow, Felsted N.H.S.
Barnston, High Easter, Rev. E. Gepp.
Witham, E. E. Turner.
Southend, C. Nicholson.
C. melitensis Linn. Dagenham, Melville and Smith.
(To be continued.)
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF GEORGE
GLOVER, "FORGER."
By PERCY THOMPSON, F.L.S.
(With One Plate.)
[Read 25th February, 1939.]
THE keen interest which most cultivated minds have in
objects of antiquity has repeatedly led to the manufacture
of spurious objects by unscrupulous persons for personal profit.
As a striking example of this, one need only refer to the regular
trade in forgeries of ancient Egyptian scarabs, ushabti and
other tomb-furniture, which is carried on by modern Egyptians
at the expense of foreign tourists.
In our own country the prince of forgers of prehistoric relics
was one Edward Simpson (born 1815), a Yorkshireman who, in
early life, through contact with an employer, Dr. Ripley, a
geologist and antiquarian of Whitby, acquired a familiarity with
the forms and general appearance of fossils and flint implements;
knowledge, which he utilised later to fabricate specimens of
similar aspect. Simpson was an intelligent man who seems to
have taken a genuine pride in this work, which he made his trade,
extending his operations over a large part of England, even
visiting Scotland and Ireland, and almost everywhere finding
plenty of eager buyers for his discreditable wares. Actively
engaged in this way from about 1841 on, he attained considerable
notoriety, being known in different districts under various aliases,
of which "Flint Jack" was the most usual, but "Fossil Willy,"
"Cockney Bill" and "Bones" were other of his cognomens.