Look what we dug up

[Jool]

Maggie, yes we have come full circle haven't we.  The whistle image looks exactly like yours and it is clear enough to see ears, horns, wooly hair on top of it's head and no mane.  I agree it is narrow faced for a bull but I'm voting bull.   The problem now is a date and whose crest it is 

[jess5athome]

Hi, and just to add a bit of info to reply numbers 25, 28 and 30 take a look at the sentence just above "External links" on the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Dowler_&_Sons

Frank.

[Maggie.]

Ah-ha.  So the case for it being an escargot whistle has re-opened. 

If it was a police whistle shouldn't it have the constabulary name on it though?  Perhaps it is a whistle used for another purpose ......... referree, railway guard, hunting?  Just picking thoughts out of nowhere.

[groom]

If it was a police whistle shouldn't it have the constabulary name on it though?

Remember what I said earlier? That could have been on the other side of the whistle.

[Maggie.]

I do indeed remember Jan. 

That would require two separate manufacturing templates for each whistle though.  I think, but haven't checked, that the police whistle examples we have found  show the constabulary name on same disc as the crest.

[behindthefrogs]

Why have we gone back to discussing organisations like police forces when we had, I thought, agreed that the crest belonged to an individual?

[Maggie.]

My fault I'm afraid btf - I was looking at the whistle museum site and saw again the image on an escargot whistle that looked very like my crest, which I'm sure is a bull.

Thanks Frank.  The history is here too:-

http://whistlemuseum.com/2008/11/24/wdowler--sons-escargot-button-whistle-c1860--70s-beside-a-dowler-american-civil-war-button.aspx

I'm sure we've had the link I've posted above before, much earlier in the thread.  Viewing it again takes us back in a circle to escargot police whistles as on the third picture down there is a bull very like mine.

[Maggie.]

As perhaps a conclusion to this thread, we were away in Shropshire last weekend and spotted a little antique shop specialising in old coins, medals etc.  We were able to show pictures of this little artifact to the proprietor who confirmed that it was a livery button from a coachman or footman etc. and we would need to look at the heraldic devices of noble families and match it up.  He did not offer an opinion as to what the animal depicted might be.

Maggie