From Tom Reidy
In her article about the toad in the hole, Gail Vines suggests that Charles Dawson fabricated the entombed toad as a trial run for his later more spectacular fraud – Piltdown man (9 August, p 50).
In my last year at secondary school in East Grinstead, Sussex, way back in 1976, I remember that we had a visit from a member of the local antiquities society. He took us out onto the Weald to show us how iron was smelted there in past centuries. In passing, he showed us a reproduction of a brass plaque that commemorated a Wealden iron master and depicted the whole process of smelting iron. He pointed out to us that the depiction was incorrect in almost every detail – it was in fact a forgery.
And who had “found” this plaque? Charles Dawson.
Brussels, Belgium
