Great Recoinage of 1816
Encyclopedia
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
following economic difficulties precipitated by the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
and the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
.
History
The French Revolutionary WarsFrench Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
from 1792 to 1799, and the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
from 1799 to 1815 led to financial instability in Britain. The shortage of silver and copper led to a shortage of coins. Paper money became legal in 1797 and local tokens were produced by companies and banks all over the country. Despite an increase in trade, national debt had increased 100% by the start of the 19th century. A series of bad harvests pushed up food prices and this culminated in riots in 1801 – 1802.
Corn prices halved at the end of the wars, when trade with Europe restarted. The Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
of 1815 were intended to protect the price of domestic grain, but this only served to keep prices high and depressed the domestic market for manufactured goods, because people had to use all their money to buy food. Likewise, European countries which relied on exporting corn to Britain in order to buy British manufactured goods were no longer able to do so.
The government needed to find a way to stabilise the currency, and the Great Recoinage was the first step in this process. The main aims were the re-introduction of a silver coinage and a change in the gold coinage from the Guinea
Guinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
valued at 21 shillings to the slightly lighter Sovereign worth 20 shillings. The value of the Shilling remained unchanged at twelve pence.
This massive recoinage programme by the Royal Mint
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK...
created standard gold sovereigns and circulating crowns and half-crowns
Half crown (British coin)
The half crown was a denomination of British money worth half of a crown, equivalent to two and a half shillings , or one-eighth of a pound. The half crown was first issued in 1549, in the reign of Edward VI...
containing the now famous image of St. George & the Dragon
Saint George and the Dragon
The episode of Saint George and the Dragon appended to the hagiography of Saint George was Eastern in origin, brought back with the Crusaders and retold with the courtly appurtenances belonging to the genre of Romance...
by Benedetto Pistrucci
Benedetto Pistrucci
Benedetto Pistrucci was a distinguished Italian Gem-engraver, medallist and coin-engraver who became Chief-medallist at the Royal Mint in England.-Early life, training and career:...
and eventually copper farthings in 1821.
The initial portrait of the King by the Italian engraver Benedetto Pistrucci
Benedetto Pistrucci
Benedetto Pistrucci was a distinguished Italian Gem-engraver, medallist and coin-engraver who became Chief-medallist at the Royal Mint in England.-Early life, training and career:...
, has become known to collectors as the "bull-head George". Pistrucci was unable to engrave it from life since King George III
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
was insane. The design was met with such public hostility that it was withdrawn.
The weight of the new gold sovereigns was calculated by proclaiming that the value of one troy pound of standard (22 carat) gold was £46 14s 6d. Sovereigns therefore weighed 123.2744783 grains or 7.988030269 grams, which persists to the present day, almost two centuries later. To put a gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
into effect, and avoid the pitfalls of bimetallism
Bimetallism
In economics, bimetallism is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent both to a certain quantity of gold and to a certain quantity of silver; such a system establishes a fixed rate of exchange between the two metals...
, silver coins were declared legal tender only for sums of money up to £2.
The recoinage of silver in England after a long drought produced a burst of coins: the mint struck nearly 40 million shillings between 1816 and 1820, 17 million half crowns and 1.3 million silver crowns.
The value of one troy pound (weighing 5760 grains) of standard (0.925 fine) 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....
was fixed by coining it into 66 shillings (or its equivalent in other denominations). This effectively set the weight of all silver coins, and their subsequent decimal new pence replacements, from 1816 until the 1990s, when new smaller coins were introduced.
The silver coins initially produced were shillings weighing 87.2727 grains (or 5.655 grams), halfcrowns of 218.1818 grains (14.138 grams) and crowns of 436.3636 grains (28.276 grams). Over the many reigns until decimalisation other denominations came and went, such as the threepence, sixpence, florin, and double florin, always weighing exactly one troy pound per 66 shillings (irrespective of fineness, which was reduced to 50% in 1920, and to 0% in 1947).