32. A Detective Who “Recovered” Items He Had Stolen
William Chaloner (1650 – 1699) led an interesting and interestingly crooked life that few can match. The son of a Warwickshire weaver, he was a willful child who showed no interest in the family trade. So his exasperated father sent him to apprentice to a nail maker in Birmingham. Chaloner had no interest in it that line of work, either. However, he did get drawn to another type of metalwork that Birmingham was famous for at the time: counterfeiting coins. He took to that scheme like a duck to water, and soon gained expertise in producing fake groats – a coin worth four pence.
Chaloner headed to London in the 1680s, and began selling dil-dos. He also got started on a new career as a psychic and a quack doctor selling fake miracle cures. In addition, he gained a reputation as a particularly successful detective, with a keen nose for finding and recovering stolen items. That success probably had something to do with the fact that Chaloner had stolen those items himself, before offering to “find them” in exchange for a reward.
