Here is an interesting one for you all...

I found this little brass item metal detecting an 1870-1910 location in york, W.A . It says HOOLIGAN STEDWARD
From all my research I found out that there was a Edward Hooligan in England who was very famous in the late 1800s and who made the word Hooligan famous.
The other thing that i think it might be is something someone on face book advised me of, could be a book pin from a book in 1899 called Hooliganism was written by a St Edward . St Edward together is Stedward as there wasnt much room in the plate to fit the writing.
There is also what looks like 1 in on the back.
Measurements are ....55mm x 16mm .


Many thanks for any info in regards to this item.

Untitled by Marc Russo, on Flickr

Untitled by Marc Russo, on Flickr

Untitled by Marc Russo, on Flickr

Or this..

Nice find Marc
Geez they don't much like hooligans do they :skull:

reply from WA museum...

Hello Marc
Thank you for your inquiry about the brass metal item. We are not certain what this is, however, when I first saw this I immediately thought that it looked like something from a horse harness. Ive seen similar items that were fixed to horse winkers or saddle corners (and this could still be one of those). However, in this instance it could be a crude home stamped halter name plate, Hooligan could be the owner and St Edwards/Stedwards the horses name or vice versa. There are multiple images of halter name plates online (see what you think).

Edward looks like 10 broken noses. Tough looking critter.