What happened in 1837?

Not the sort of question I normally ask myself.

Certainly not the kind of question anyone would ask themselves unless they were studying history, for example, or maybe researching their family tree.

William IV
1837 groat.

But it was a question I asked myself following the discovery of a tiny, almost insignificant silver coin, a fourpenny groat, dated 1837.

Let me explain. One of my hobbies is metal detecting. And there's nothing I enjoy more than walking the local stubble fields swinging my metal detector from side to side. The peace and quiet mixed with the warmth from an autumn sun is almost intoxicating.

History is all around me. I am so aware of it. The church in the distance goes back a thousand years. The field boundaries have barely changed for centuries. I'm walking on top of history with every step. Tiny blue-patterned remnants of plates and cups which once took pride of place in kitchens and living rooms of long ago now lie scattered across the field.

And underneath, buried and forgotten, who knows what is waiting to be discovered. Perhaps a fortune? Likely not. But that doesn't matter. There are so many other compensations.

So what did happen in 1837?

King William IV died childless and Victoria, his niece, ascended the British throne, ruling for 63 years. The Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist made its public début in serialized form in the literary magazine Bentley's Miscellany. In America, Michigan entered the Union as the twenty-sixth state. Martin Van Buren was inaugurated as the eighth president of the United States. Sir Isaac Pitman introduced the shorthand writing system which bears his name. English landscape painter John Constable died aged 60.

And someone lost a small silver coin which lay buried in a field for more than 170 years.