British One Penny coin (pre-decimal)
Encyclopedia
The English Penny
, originally a coin of 1.3 to 1.5 g pure silver
, includes the penny introduced around the year 785 by King Offa of Mercia
. However, his coins were similar in size and weight to the continental deniers of the period, and to the Anglo-Saxon
sceat
s which had gone before it, which were probably also called "pence".
Throughout the period of the Kingdom of England
, from its beginnings in the 9th century, the penny was produced in silver. Pennies of the same nominal value, one 240th of a pound sterling
, were in circulation continuously until the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain
in 1707.
pfennig
. Its abbreviation d. comes from the Roman denarius
and was used until decimalisation
in 1971.
Anglo-Saxon silver pennies were the currency used to pay the Danegeld
, essentially protection money paid to the Vikings so that they would go away and not ravage the land. As an illustration of how heavy a burden the Danegeld was, more Anglo-Saxon pennies from the decades around the first millennium have been found in Denmark than in England. In the reign of Ethelred the Unready (978–1016), some 40 million pennies were paid to the Danes, while King Canute (Knut)
(1016–1035) paid off his invasion army with another 20 million pennies. This adds up to about 2,800,000 troy ounce
s (87 tonne
s) of silver, equivalent to £
250,000 at the time, and worth about £10 million in money (however, its purchasing power at that time may have exceeded £100 million and may have been as high as £1 billion of today's currency).
The penny initially weighed 20 to 22.5 grain
s (1.3 to 1.5 g). It was standardized to 1/240th of a Tower pound
(approx. 350 g). The alloy was set to sterling silver
of 925/1000 in 1158 under King Henry II
. The weight standard was changed to the Troy pound
(373.242 g) in 1528 under Henry VIII
, i.e. a pennyweight
became about 1.555 gram
s. As the purity and weight of the coin was critical, the name of the moneyer who manufactured the coin, and at which mint, often appeared on the reverse
side of the coin.
From the time of King Offa
, the penny was the only denomination of coin minted in England for 500 years, until the attempted gold coinage issue of King Henry III
, and the later issues of King Edward III
.
At the time of the 1702 London Mint Assay by Sir Isaac Newton
, the silver content of British coinage was defined to be one troy ounce
of sterling silver
for 62 pence. Therefore, the value of the monetary pound sterling
was equivalent to only 3.87 troy ounces of sterling silver. This was the standard from 1601 to 1816.
Penny
A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...
, originally a coin of 1.3 to 1.5 g pure silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, includes the penny introduced around the year 785 by King Offa of Mercia
Offa of Mercia
Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald after defeating the other claimant Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign it is likely...
. However, his coins were similar in size and weight to the continental deniers of the period, and to the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
sceat
Sceat
Sceattas were small, thick silver coins minted in England, Frisia and Jutland during the Anglo-Saxon period.-History:Their name derives from an Old English word meaning 'wealth', which has been applied to these coins since the seventeenth century, based on interpretations of the law-code of King...
s which had gone before it, which were probably also called "pence".
Throughout the period of the Kingdom of England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
, from its beginnings in the 9th century, the penny was produced in silver. Pennies of the same nominal value, one 240th of a pound sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
, were in circulation continuously until the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
in 1707.
History
The name "penny" comes from the Old English pennige , sharing the same root as the GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
pfennig
Pfennig
The Pfennig , plural Pfennige, is an old German coin or note, which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002....
. Its abbreviation d. comes from the Roman denarius
Denarius
In the Roman currency system, the denarius was a small silver coin first minted in 211 BC. It was the most common coin produced for circulation but was slowly debased until its replacement by the antoninianus...
and was used until decimalisation
Decimal Day
Decimal Day was the day the United Kingdom and Ireland decimalised their currencies.-Old system:Under the old currency of pounds, shillings and pence, the pound was made up of 240 pence , with 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a...
in 1971.
Anglo-Saxon silver pennies were the currency used to pay the Danegeld
Danegeld
The Danegeld was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources; the term Danegeld did not appear until the early twelfth century...
, essentially protection money paid to the Vikings so that they would go away and not ravage the land. As an illustration of how heavy a burden the Danegeld was, more Anglo-Saxon pennies from the decades around the first millennium have been found in Denmark than in England. In the reign of Ethelred the Unready (978–1016), some 40 million pennies were paid to the Danes, while King Canute (Knut)
Canute the Great
Cnut the Great , also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F...
(1016–1035) paid off his invasion army with another 20 million pennies. This adds up to about 2,800,000 troy ounce
Troy weight
Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals, gemstones, and black powder.There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound, rather than the 16 ounces per pound found in the more common avoirdupois system. The troy ounce is 480 grains, compared with the avoirdupois ounce,...
s (87 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s) of silver, equivalent to £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
250,000 at the time, and worth about £10 million in money (however, its purchasing power at that time may have exceeded £100 million and may have been as high as £1 billion of today's currency).
The penny initially weighed 20 to 22.5 grain
Grain (measure)
A grain is a unit of measurement of mass that is nominally based upon the mass of a single seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance the average masses of wheat and barley grains were part of the legal definition of units of mass. However, there is no evidence of any country ever...
s (1.3 to 1.5 g). It was standardized to 1/240th of a Tower pound
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
(approx. 350 g). The alloy was set to sterling silver
Sterling silver
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925....
of 925/1000 in 1158 under King Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
. The weight standard was changed to the Troy pound
Troy weight
Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals, gemstones, and black powder.There are 12 troy ounces per troy pound, rather than the 16 ounces per pound found in the more common avoirdupois system. The troy ounce is 480 grains, compared with the avoirdupois ounce,...
(373.242 g) in 1528 under Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, i.e. a pennyweight
Pennyweight
A pennyweight is a unit of mass that is equal to 24 grains, 1/20 of a troy ounce, 1/240 of a troy pound, approximately 0.054857 avoirdupois ounce and exactly 1.55517384 grams....
became about 1.555 gram
Gram
The gram is a metric system unit of mass....
s. As the purity and weight of the coin was critical, the name of the moneyer who manufactured the coin, and at which mint, often appeared on the reverse
Obverse and reverse
Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags , seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse...
side of the coin.
From the time of King Offa
Offa of Mercia
Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald after defeating the other claimant Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign it is likely...
, the penny was the only denomination of coin minted in England for 500 years, until the attempted gold coinage issue of King Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
, and the later issues of King Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
.
At the time of the 1702 London Mint Assay by Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, the silver content of British coinage was defined to be one troy ounce
Troy ounce
The troy ounce is a unit of imperial measure. In the present day it is most commonly used to gauge the weight of precious metals. One troy ounce is nowadays defined as exactly 0.0311034768 kg = 31.1034768 g. There are approximately 32.1507466 troy oz in 1 kg...
of sterling silver
Sterling silver
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925....
for 62 pence. Therefore, the value of the monetary pound sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
was equivalent to only 3.87 troy ounces of sterling silver. This was the standard from 1601 to 1816.
Pennies by period
- History of the English penny (c. 600-1066)History of the English penny (c. 600-1066)The history of the English penny can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 7th century: to the small, thick silver coins known to contemporaries as pæningas or denarii, though now often referred to as sceattas by numismatists. Broader, thinner pennies inscribed with the name of the king...
- History of the English penny (1066-1154)History of the English penny (1066-1154)This is the history of the English penny from the years 1066 to 1154.- The Early Norman kings :Following the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror continued the Anglo-Saxon coinage system. As a penny was a fairly large unit of currency at the time, when small change was needed a penny would be cut...
(The Early Normans and the Anarchy, 1066–1154) - History of the English penny (1154-1485)History of the English penny (1154-1485)This is the history of the English penny from the years 1154 to 1485.- The Plantagenets :King Henry II ascended the throne in 1154 as the first of the Plantagenet dynasty...
(The Plantagenets, 1154–1485) - History of the English penny (1485-1603)History of the English penny (1485-1603)The History of the English penny from 1485 to 1603 covers the period of the Tudor dynasty.-Henry VII:Henry Tudor, who reigned as King Henry VII between 1485 and 1509, had a rather tenuous claim on the throne, being the Lancastrian claimant via an illegitimate descendant of Edward III when all the...
(The Tudors, 1485–1603) - History of the English penny (1603–1707) (The Stuarts and the Commonwealth)
- History of the British penny (1714-1901)History of the British penny (1714-1901)The History of the Penny of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from 1714 to 1901 covers the period of the House of Hanover.-Silver pennies:...
(The Hanoverians) - History of the British penny (1901-1970)History of the British penny (1901-1970)The penny of King Edward VII is of the same technical standards as the late Victorian issues. The head on the obverse is by George William de Saulles , facing right, with the inscription EDWARDVS VII DEI GRA BRITT OMN REX FID DEF IND IMP...
(The twentieth century penny, 1901–1970) - Decimal Day, 1971Decimal DayDecimal Day was the day the United Kingdom and Ireland decimalised their currencies.-Old system:Under the old currency of pounds, shillings and pence, the pound was made up of 240 pence , with 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a...
- Penny (British decimal coin) (Post-decimalisation, 1971–present)