The Great Recoinage of 1816 was an attempt by the government of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...
to re-stabilise its currency, the
pound sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
, after the economic difficulties brought by the
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted French First Republic, France against Ki ...
and the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
.
Background
The
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted French First Republic, France against Ki ...
(1792–1802) and the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
(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
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
and
Napoleonic
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
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
The Continental Blockade (), or Continental System, was a large-scale embargo against British trade by Napoleon Bonaparte against the British Empire from 21 November 1806 until 11 April 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon issued the Berlin ...
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 colonial empires. A 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, the
national debt
A country's gross government debt (also called public debt, or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit oc ...
had increased by 100% by the start of the 19th century. A series of bad harvests pushed up
food prices
Food prices refer to the average price level for food across countries, regions and on a global scale. Food prices have an impact on producers and consumers of food.
Price levels depend on the food production process, including food marketing an ...
and this culminated in riots in 1801–02.
Corn prices halved at the end of the wars, when trade with Europe resumed. The
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They were ...
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 that 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 reintroduction of a silver coinage and a change in the gold coinage from the
guinea
Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...
valued at 21 shillings to the slightly lighter
sovereign
''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'.
The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...
worth 20 shillings. The value of the
shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...
remained unchanged at twelve pence.
This massive recoinage programme by the
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's oldest company and the official maker of British coins.
Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly owned by His Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclus ...
created standard gold sovereigns and circulating
crowns
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
and
half-crowns containing the now famous image of
St. George and the Dragon
In a legend, Saint Georgea soldier venerated in Christianitydefeats a dragon. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tr ...
by the Italian engraver
Benedetto Pistrucci
Benedetto Pistrucci (29 May 1783 – 16 September 1855) was an Italian gem-engraver, medallist and coin engraver, probably best known for his Saint George and the Dragon design for the British sovereign coin. Pistrucci was commissioned by ...
and eventually
copper farthings in 1821. Pistrucci's initial portrait of
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
has become known to collectors as the "bull-head George".
Specifications
The weight of the new gold sovereigns was calculated on the basis that the value of one
troy pound
Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England, and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and the ...
of standard (22 carat) gold was £46 14s 6d. Sovereigns therefore weighed 123.2745 grains or 7.98805 grams. This standard persists to the present day, more than two centuries later. To put a
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 la ...
into effect, and avoid the pitfalls of
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 betwee ...
, 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.
Report from the Select Committee on the Royal Mint: together with the minutes of evidence, appendix and index, Volume 2
' (Great Britain. Committee on Royal Mint, 1849), p. 172.
The value of one troy pound (weighing 5760 grains) of standard
sterling silver
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925.
''Fine silver'', which is 99.9% pure silver, is r ...
(0.925 fineness) was fixed by coining it into 66 shillings (or its equivalent in other denominations). This established the weight of all silver coins (and their cupro-nickel successors), and their 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), half-crowns 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). This made 5 sterling silver shillings (which is 1 crown), about the weight of .9091 troy ounce of sterling silver.
See also
*
Coinage Act of 1816
References
{{Reflist
History of British coinage
Economic history of the United Kingdom
1816 in England
1816 in economics
1816 in the United Kingdom
History of pound sterling