The purpose of this note is to bring together in one convenient place what can be established about the career of Francis Edward Whelan (1848-1907), manager of the London branch of the Paris-based coin business Rollin and Feuardent, and for something over thirty years up to his death a major player in the London coin trade.
For George Eastwood (died 1866), the coin dealer from whom the Rollin and Feuardent firm took over the premises at 27 Haymarket, see now the excellent article by Robert Halliday, ‘The Billy and Charley forgeries’, Antiquaries Journal 102, 2022, 447-469. Eastwood, and another London coin dealer, William Edwards, believed in the authenticity of the pseudo-medieval counterfeit lead antiquities manufactured by William Smith and Charles Eaton from the mid 1850s onwards, and marketed them actively to their customers. Readers of this blog will be pleased to see that Philip Mernick was able to help the author out over the location of the obscure location where Eaton died in 1870.