19. Seventeenth-Century England’s Most Notorious Conman and Master of Deceit
William Chaloner (1650 – 1699) was a conman, but one with a resume that few other practitioners of deceit could match. The son of a Warwickshire weaver, he was a willful child who showed no interest in his father’s trade. So he was sent to apprentice to a nail maker in Birmingham. Chaloner had no interest in that line of work, either, but he did get drawn to another type of metalwork that Birmingham was famous for at the time: counterfeiting coins. He took to it like a duck to water.
Before long, Chaloner had gained expertise in the production of fake groats – a coin worth four pence. In the 1680s, he headed to London. There, he sold dildos and got started on a new career as a psychic and a quack doctor who sold fake miracle cures. He also gained a reputation as a particularly successful detective, whose ability to find and recover stolen items garnered widespread praise. What people did not know was that Chaloner’s success owed much to the fact that he had stolen those items himself, before he offered to “find them” in exchange for a reward.