The Layton Collection

THE THOMAS LAYTON TRUST & LAYTON'S COLLECTION

The Post Boy Robb’d of his Mail

The Post Boy Robb’d of his Mail or the Pacquet Broke Open, consisting of letters of Love and Gallantry, and all miscellaneous subjects in which are discover’d the Vertues, Vices, Follies, Humours and Intrigues of Mankind

Restoration era rake, ‘wit of the present age’, and enemy of many a literary heavyweight, Gildon’s life was as colourful as the characters portrayed in his prodigiously written stories and “biographies”. The Post-Boy robb’d, featuring such delights as ‘the lover’s sighs: or, the amours of the beautiful Stremunia and Alphonso, King of Castile’, is a humorous and completely fictitious collection of letters, written between those of dubious fame and high station.

Charles Gildon, 1706. Layton Collection 4110

Back to main resource

The Collection

Thomas Layton collected books, coins, and archaeological items (usually described as ‘antiquities’) for 70 years. In that time he had accumulated what has been described as “probably the largest collection of London antiquities ever amassed by a single individual”.

The vast majority of items are believed to have been bought at auctions. Some came to him from his men working on the river. His businesses provided opportunities for finds from dredging, building of bridges and embankments along the banks of the Thames, for which Layton paid good money. Even by the standards of the day Layton kept poor records of where items were found. Despite this, the collection is considered highly important particularly to archaeologists and pre-historians.