The Treasure Hunt That Caused A RIOT #weirdhistory #treasurehunt

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]In the early 1900s, a newspaper treasure hunt triggered a riot. On January 3rd, 1904, newspaper, The Weekly Dispatch, announced the greatest treasure hunt on record. The idea was simple. The newspaper had hidden medallions around the UK, and anyone who found a medallion and returned it to the paper would win £50. And to aid people in this hunt, the newspaper was going to print a series of clues over the coming weeks and months.

[00:00:36]However, the paper made a big mistake.

[00:00:40]Despite each article featuring a disclaimer that said none of the medallions were hidden on private property and that none of the medallions would require tools to recover, the British public, being the British public, decided to ignore this. For example, on January 10th, the paper printed a clue saying that the Islington medal was hidden near a place where people go against their will. Soon, hundreds of people descended on Liverpool Street Fever Hospital and Pentonville Prison and started digging up any piece of exposed soil they could find, forcing the local police to dispatch 10 police officers to break up the crowd. And it wasn't just major public buildings. Thomas Wright, a barristister living in West London, told the police he returned home after work, only to find a gang of treasure hunters digging up his garden. Even worse, violence was frequently breaking out at these gatherings, often boiling over into fullscale riots that took entire police forces to break up. Even the Weekly Dispatch themselves wasn't immune to this, as gangs of thieves repeatedly broke the newspaper windows, hoping to get copies of the clues early.

[00:02:03]Eventually, after pressure from the police, several fines, and the threat of an injunction, the paper ended the treasure hunt on February 14th. While the paper's final article did its best to distance the publication from the chaos, it did note that at the time of publication, only 134 of the 177 medallions had been found, meaning that 43 medallions were still hidden somewhere in the UK. However, in the years following this stunt, several of these medallions have been found by both metal detectorrists and random locals, meaning that the greatest treasure hunt on record is one of the greatest and most British moments in media Easter egg.