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Great Recoinage Of 1696
The Great Recoinage of 1696 was an attempt by the English Government under King William III to replace the hammered silver that made up most of the coinage in circulation, much of it being clipped and badly worn. History Sterling was in disarray in the late 17th century. Hand struck silver coins from prior to 1662 had been clipped around the edges and thus their value (weight) reduced so that they were no longer a viable tender, especially abroad. Since the machine-struck silver coins produced by the Royal Mint in the Tower of London after 1662 were protected from clipping by an engraved, decorated and milled edge, they were instead forged, both by casting from counterfeit moulds and by die stamping from counterfeit dies. By 1696 forged coins constituted approximately 10% of the nation's currency. The currency also had a third problem: its value as silver bullion in Paris and Amsterdam was greater than the face value in London, and thus vast quantities of coins were melted an ...
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King William III
William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Ireland and Scotland. His victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is commemorated by Unionists, who display orange colours in his honour. He ruled Britain alongside his wife and cousin, Queen Mary II, and popular histories usually refer to their reign as that of "William and Mary". William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal, the daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His father died a week before his birth, making William III the prince of Orange from birth. In 1677, he married his cou ...
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William Lowndes (British Politician)
William Lowndes may refer to: * William Lowndes (1652–1724), British politician and Secretary to the Treasury * William Lowndes (1752-1828), British lawyer, parliamentary draftsman and Chief Commissioner of the Board of Taxes * William Lowndes (congressman) (1782–1822), U.S. Congressman from South Carolina * William Selby Lowndes (''c.'' 1767–1840), British Member of Parliament * William Thomas Lowndes William Thomas Lowndes (c. 1798 – 31 July 1843), English bibliographer, was born about 1798, the son of a London bookseller. His principal work, ''The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature''—the first systematic work of the kind—w ...
(''c.'' 1798–1843), English bibliographer, whose principal work was ''The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature'' {{hndis, name=Lowndes, William ...
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History Of British Coinage
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ...
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Chester Castle
Chester Castle is in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. It is sited at the southwest extremity of the area bounded by the city walls. The castle stands on an eminence overlooking the River Dee. In the castle complex are the remaining parts of the medieval castle together with the neoclassical buildings designed by Thomas Harrison which were built between 1788 and 1813. Parts of the neoclassical buildings are used today by the Crown Court and as a military museum. The museum and the medieval remains are a tourist attraction. History The castle was built in 1070 by Hugh d'Avranches, the second Earl of Chester. It is possible that it was built on the site of an earlier Saxon fortification but this has not been confirmed. The original structure would have been a motte-and-bailey castle with a wooden tower. In the 12th century the wooden tower was replaced by a square stone tower, the Flag Tower. During the same century the stone gateway to the inner bailey was built. Thi ...
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St Peter's Hospital, Bristol
St Peter's Hospital, Bristol could be found to the rear of St Peter's church until it was destroyed in the Bristol Blitz in 1940. History A house had stood on that site since approximately 1400 and the hospital was a timbered, gabled mansion. In 1607 the building was bought by a rich merchant named Robert Aldworth who went about completely rebuilding it. In later years (circa 1634) it passed into the ownership of Thomas Elbridge and later still for a short period of time the building was the Bristol Mint. The old Bristol Mint was then bought by the Corporation in 1696 for £800 to be used as a workhouse for the Bristol Corporation of the Poor and it is in this role as a paupers' workhouse that the building is much better known. It was later called St Peter's Hospital as in 1820 85 inmates looked after 306 sick ones. After the cholera outbreak of 1836, the corporation of the poor rented the defunct prison at Stapleton, thereby founding Blackberry Hill Hospital. St Peter's Hospi ...
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Coin Act 1696
The Coin Act 1696 (8&9 Will.3 c.26) was an Act of the Parliament of England which made it high treason to make or possess equipment useful for counterfeiting coins. Its title was "An Act for the better preventing the counterfeiting the current Coin of this Kingdom." It was extended to cover Scotland by the Treason Act 1708. Provisions The Act came into effect on 15 May 1697. Section 1 made it treason to "knowingly make or mend, or begin or proceed to make or mend, or assist in the making or mending of" any stamp, mould or the like which could be used to make gold or silver coins current in the realm, or any tool which could be used to emboss letters or marks on the side of a coin. It was also treason to knowingly buy, hide or conceal, or have possession of such items "without lawful Authority or sufficient Excuse for that Purpose." Aiding or abetting such conduct was also treason. Section 2 made it treason to "wittingly or knowingly convey or assist in the conveying" any of the i ...
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Great Recoinage Of 1816
The Great Recoinage of 1816 was an attempt by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to re-stabilise its currency, the pound sterling, after the economic difficulties brought by the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Background The French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) led to financial instability in Britain. This was due to direct military and economic warfare against France as well as Britain's financing of a series of coalitions opposed to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic regimes. In exchange for large cash subsidies from Britain, nations such as Austria, Prussia and Russia, with armies larger than Britain's, were paid to fight against France. The economic conflicts of that era (such as Napoleon's Continental System and Britain's retaliatory measures against it) especially disrupted trade and the availability of markets in Europe for the products of Britain's growing mercantile and colon ...
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Gold Standard
A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the late 1920s to 1932 as well as from 1944 until 1971 when the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. Many states nonetheless hold substantial gold reserves. Historically, the silver standard and bimetallism have been more common than the gold standard. The shift to an international monetary system based on a gold standard reflected accident, network externalities, and path dependence. Great Britain accidentally adopted a ''de facto'' gold standard in 1717 when Sir Isaac Newton, then-master of the Royal Mint, set the exchange rate of silver to gold too low, thus causing silver coins to go out of circulation. As Great Britain became the world's leading financ ...
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Bimetallism
Bimetallism, also known as the bimetallic standard, is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically gold and silver, creating a fixed rate of exchange between them. For scholarly purposes, "proper" bimetallism is sometimes distinguished as permitting that both gold and silver money are legal tender in unlimited amounts and that gold and silver may be taken to be coined by the government mints in unlimited quantities. This distinguishes it from "limping standard" bimetallism, where both gold and silver are legal tender but only one is freely coined (e.g. the moneys of France, Germany, and the United States after 1873), and from "trade" bimetallism, where both metals are freely coined but only one is legal tender and the other is used as "trade money" (e.g. most moneys in western Europe from the 13th to 18th centuries). Economists also distinguish ''legal'' bimetallism, where the law guarantees ...
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Thomas Salmon (historian)
Thomas Salmon (1679–1767) was an English historical and geographical writer. Life Born at Meppershall in Bedfordshire, and baptised there on 2 February 1679, was son of Thomas Salmon, by his wife Katherine, daughter of John Bradshaw; Nathanael Salmon was his elder brother. William Cole wrote that he wrote much of his work in Cambridge, where he ran a coffee house, and then moved to London. He told Cole that he had spent time at sea, and in both the East and West Indies for some time. He also travelled in Europe. In 1739–40 Salmon accompanied George Anson on his voyage round the world. He died on 20 January 1767. Works Salmon's works were: * ''A Review of the History of England, as far as it relates to the Titles and Pretensions of four several Kings, and their Respective Characters, from the Conquest to the Revolution'', London, 1722; 2nd ed. 2 vols. London, 1724. * ''An Impartial Examination of Bishop Burnet's History of his own Times'', 2 vols. London, 1724. * ''Bi ...
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Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among the most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book (''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus. In the , Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for ...
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Bank Of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of the United Kingdom, it is the world's eighth-oldest bank. It was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until it was nationalised in 1946 by the Attlee ministry. The Bank became an independent public organisation in 1998, wholly owned by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the government, with a mandate to support the economic policies of the government of the day, but independence in maintaining price stability. The Bank is one of eight banks authorised to issue banknotes in the United Kingdom, has a monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales, and regulates the issue of banknotes by commercial banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee has devolved responsibility for ...
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