A Rare 17th Century Antique Oak Alms Box with Twin Locks and Coin Aperture

A rare and charming survival: a small 17th-century English oak alms box, or mite box, of dovetailed construction, with a coin aperture to the top and twin key apertures to the front — the tangible mechanics of parish trust made in oak and iron.

The box is of fine dovetailed construction, the through-dovetails proudly exposed at each corner, beneath a moulded-edge lid hung on its original wrought iron butterfly hinges. A coin aperture to the top of the lid received the offerings; the two key apertures to the front tell the more interesting story. Church practice — formalised in Canon 84 of 1604, which required the poor men's box to be secured under multiple locks — demanded that no single person could open the box alone: one key was customarily held by the minister and another by a churchwarden, so the contents could only be accessed with both present. The locks and internal hasp are now absent, but the twin escutcheoned apertures remain as evidence of the arrangement.

The Royal Injunctions of 1547 had required every English parish to provide a box for the collection of alms, and small portable examples such as this — sometimes termed mite boxes, after the widow's offering of Mark 12 — served alongside the great fixed poor boxes for gathering and carrying collections.

The oak has a rich, deep nut-brown waxed patina, the arrises softened by centuries of handling, with some old fire damage to the back boards — an honest scar of a long working life, and a reminder of how narrowly such humble objects survive at all.

Locks and internal hasp missing, as noted; otherwise in fine original condition.

Provenance: England. 17th-century.

Material: Oak and Iron.

Condition: Please see above and refer to the images.

Dimensions: 10⅝ in (27 cm) wide, 6¼ in (16 cm) high, 6¼ in (16 cm) deep