William IV's British coinage

The British coinage struck under William IV (r. 1830–1837) range in denomination from the double sovereign (£2) to the third farthing (1⁄2880 of a pound) though the former was not minted for circulation and the latter was struck only for colonial use. The coins have an obverse by William Wyon based on a sketch by Francis Chantrey, and reverses by Wyon and Jean Baptiste Merlen, both of the Royal Mint.

Preparation for William's coinage began even before he became king in June 1830, probably because Wyon was anxious to head off a potential challenge from his rival, Benedetto Pistrucci. Wyon's work was viewed by William, who liked it and ordered it be used exclusively for coins during his reign; it was also used on his coronation medal. The designs were formally approved in early 1831, and coining began later that year.

In addition to the issues for use in Britain, several small denominations of sterling were struck during William's reign for colonial use, two of these, the half farthing and silver threepence, were later issued for use in Britain. William's reign saw no great innovations in coinage, but saw the start of reform at the Royal Mint.

Background

William IV was styled William, Duke of Clarence before succeeding to the throne at age 64 on the death of his brother George IV in June 1830.[1] Until Charles III in 2022, he was the oldest person to become the British monarch.[2] He had ten illegitimate children by the actress Dorothea Jordan, but his marriage to Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen produced no surviving offspring. He died in 1837, leaving the throne to his niece, Victoria.[1]

William Wyon was born in 1795 in Birmingham, into a family many of whom were medallists or worked in die engraving. His father was Peter Wyon, who engraved many tokens and medals. In 1815, his cousin, Thomas Wyon was appointed chief engraver at the Royal Mint in London and William was invited to become his assistant. In 1817, Thomas Wyon died. There was internal conflict as to who should be his successor between William Wyon and the Italian-born sculptor, Benedetto Pistrucci, who had been promised the position, for which he was ineligible as a foreigner. In 1828, Wyon was given the position of Chief Engraver and Pistrucci made Chief Medallist, at equal salaries. Nevertheless, the conflict between the two, joined in by their partisans, continued.[3]

Jean Baptiste Merlen (also known as Johann Baptist Merlen) was of Flemish origin, and had been working on official medals in Paris under the French First Empire. He emigrated to Britain and was hired by the Royal Mint, apparently at Pistrucci's recommendation.[4] His formal position was as a temporary extra engraver, for he was, like Pistrucci, a foreigner ineligible by statute for the permanent salaried posts at the Royal Mint. Merlen in practice acted as second engraver, and that position was held vacant until after his retirement in 1844.[5]

Preparation

Wyon began his preparations for King William's coinage even before George IV had died, obtaining a sketch of William from the sculptor Francis Chantrey in April 1830, taking care that no word reached George's ears.[6] Mark Jones, in his biography of Wyon, suggested that the two were anxious to have work done in advance of any competition from Pistrucci, and the sketch bore an inscription that it was not to be reproduced nor given to a third party without Chantrey's consent.[7] Once William was king, Wyon could work on the new coins without concealment, working from a low-relief bust of William provided by Chantrey. A die for the crown, and probably an impression from it, was shown to King William, who greatly liked it and ordered that no other portrait be used of him during his reign.[8]

Nevertheless, by late 1830, it publicly appeared little or nothing had been done to prepare King William's coinage. On 15 November 1830, John Charles Herries, the master of the Mint, stated that the delay was due to the need to engrave an accurate portrait of the King based on the Chantrey portrait, as William desired. Chantrey had to adapt his portrait to the style used on coinage, and Wyon then had to engrave the result in steel.[9] By this time, though, the King had already approved the engravings, as Herries had written to the Mint Board on 28 October.[9] An order in council setting forth authorising the new coinage was issued on 22 November 1830 and the new coins were made current by proclamation dated 13 April 1831.[7]

Pistrucci had obtained an early model of a reducing machine, allowing designs to be translated from plaster models to different die sizes. In 1824, Wyon had secured a similar machine. This allowed him to make identical images for the different sizes of coins in King William's new coinage.[10]

Designs

Due to the relatively short length of the reign, only one set of designs was used for William's coinage. The obverses are by Wyon based on a model by Chantrey, and the gold and silver coins bear identical inscriptions on that side, GULIELMUS IIII D[ei] G[ratia] BRITANNIAR[UM] REX F[idei] D[efensor] (William IV by the Grace of God King of the Britains, Defender of the Faith). The only inscription on the reverse of the gold and silver coins, on some denominations, is ANNO (year) and the date.[11] This differs from the practice on some George IV coins such as the sovereign, where Latin words surround the reverse design, and gave Merlen more room in which to work. He used this space on the sovereign for ornate scrollwork, and for the date.[12] The shilling and sixpence, issued with new designs in 1831, represent the first time an English or British coin bore its denomination in words; the fourpence (1836) also does so.[13][14] Wyon's initials WW is found on the truncation of the King's neck.[7]

Most of the reverses for the silver and gold coins were by Merlen, with credit for the coppers going to Wyon: the design for the copper pieces are the same as his work for George IV's coinage from 1825.[15][16] The sovereign and half sovereign depict the royal arms on a shield,[17] bearing on it a smaller crowned shield with the arms of the Kingdom of Hanover,[18] which William also ruled.[19] Wyon may have been influenced in the choice of design for the crown by an offer from a potential benefactor stating that he would remember Wyon in his will if the Mint in 1831 issued a crown depicting the entirety of the King's arms.[20] The crown was not issued for circulation, but merely for collectors. Both it and the half crown bear the royal arms draped in a mantle of ermine,[21] as does the double sovereign.[22] The shilling and sixpence surround their denominations with a wreath of oak.[21] The fourpence, designed by Wyon,[16] introduced in 1836, is the only British silver coin to bear the image of a seated Britannia.[23] and in that regard resembles the copper coinage.[21]

The threepence and three halfpence have reverse designs by Merlen with wreathed numerals on the reverse and resemble the Maundy money, whose reverse designs, by Merlen are unchanged from the previous reign. Because of the resemblance, the three halfpence is collected as a British coin although it never circulated there.[24][21]

Wyon's reverse design for the copper coinage, depicting Britannia, is almost unchanged from the design he created for George IV, except for slight alterations to the halfpenny and farthing.[25] It depicts Britannia helmeted and bearing a trident, and holding a shield bearing a Union flag, above a rose, shamrock and thistle representing England, Ireland and Scotland. The Latin inscription with William's royal titles is spread between the two sides.[26]

Reaction

Richard Sainthill described Wyon's work, "Thee is equally great expression in Mr. Wyon's series of the coins of George IV and William IV ... in the latter, the placid, natural, quiet aspect of a straightforward, well-intentioned man. In both, the workmanship is admirable. The truth with which each line and muscle is represented, and the softness with which all the parts melt into each other, leave nothing to be desired."[15] One of King William's friends viewed a sovereign with the king's head on it, and upon seeing what the Royal Mint Museum described as a "realistic likeness" of the king, stated, "It is the old boy himself!"[27]

The numismatist William Till commented in an 1835 article, "Of our present deservedly popular Monarch we have a beautiful Penny by Wyon. But we meet with nothing extra: we have the King and nothing but the King, as like as it is possible to convey a portrait on a medal; no laurel crown, but the head engraved from a bust from nature, alike creditable to the Sovereign's taste and the artist's ability."[13] Wyon's bust of William also appears on the King's coronation medal.[28]

Production

There were no basic numismatic innovations at the Royal Mint during William's reign.[29] However, a start was made on reform of the Royal Mint's administration, run then for private profit by the Company of Moneyers, with (in 1830) a reduction by a third of the salary of the master of the Mint, and in April 1837, abolition of the automatic funding of the Royal Mint from seignorage and from a payment from the consolidated fund, a subsidy which had begun when Sir Isaac Newton was master of the Mint a century before. Thereafter, funding of the Royal Mint was subject to an annual parliamentary vote. A committee on the establishment of the Mint was appointed to consider further reform, but its parliamentary mandate died with the end of the parliamentary session, shortened by the death of the King.[30]

No five pound pieces were struck, with the coin largest in value being the double sovereign, which was only minted for the 1831 proof set.[31] Sketches were prepared by Wyon for a five-pound piece in 1833, and shown to the King, who approved generally but the project seems to have gone no further.[32] The sixpence and half sovereign were the same size; to prevent confusion and counterfeiting, the half sovereign was made smaller in diameter in 1834, though it remained the same weight. This proved unpopular and was reversed the following year,[23] with 120,000 coins recalled and melted, likely because of complaints the smaller half sovereign was too close in diameter to the old third guinea.[33] At the urging of the politician Joseph Hume, the fourpence was struck beginning in 1836.[23] The threepence, struck for use in Britain beginning in 1845, would prove more popular, and supplant it.[34]

It was British policy, summarised in an 1825 order in council,[35] to have the colonies use sterling to the extent practical, regardless of local traditions, and by the 1830s, the pound was an imperial currency. The abolition of slavery in the West Indies in the 1830s led to an increased need for small change there and the threepence (only intended for colonial use) and the three halfpence were issued for use there,[36][37] their production authorized by a Treasury letter dated 12 September 1834.[38]

Both coins were imported into Jamaica, and the three halfpence, dubbed "a quatty", was repeatedly resupplied and was still popular in the 1890s.[39] Trinidad, which still used the Spanish colonial real, refused importation of the new coins, returning them to the colony's London agent, and stating that they were "unsuitable and not such as required".[40] In 1835, the governor of the African colony of Sierra Leone requested a supply of the new coins to supplement a currency of counterstamped colonial reales. After discussion, £1,000 worth of the threepence and three-halfpence were sent there in 1836, as "best calculated to benefit the liberated African population", as the colonial government put it.[41] They proved unpopular, and poured back to the colonial government. Additional supplies were nevertheless sent, and the Spanish pieces demonitised in 1839.[42] Both the threepence and three-halfpence were also sent to Mauritius beginning in 1837 to alleviate a shortage of small change there, but failed to wean the island from the Indian rupee system.[43]

The third farthing was struck for issuance in Malta, while the half farthing was minted for use in Ceylon.[44] Those fractional farthings were issued for use in colonies where the standard of living was lower than in Britain.[11] The third farthing was a reaction to the 1825 order in council as applied in Malta, where the farthing was made equivalent to three grani, and the governor urged the issuance of a coin equivalent to one grano, "as many articles of primary necessity are often sold here to the value of one grano".[45] The third farthing was authorised in 1827.[46] The half farthing was later (1842) made current in Britain. Even then, it saw little use there.[47]

Mintages were low during parts of William's reign, with only 1,500,000 coins struck by the Royal Mint, down from a total in excess of 40,000,000 in 1826.[48] Most denominations were issued in 1831, if only as part of the proof set, but only the sovereign and Maundy coinage were issued to the public dated 1832 or 1833. All denominations intended for circulation in Britain (from the farthing to the sovereign) were struck dated 1834, and most every year after that until the end of William's reign in 1837. The penny and halfpenny were only issued dated 1831, 1834 and 1837.[49]

Aftermath

Main article: Young Head coinage

King William IV died on 20 June 1837; his niece, Victoria, was his successor. This change meant that a new coinage would be prepared.[19] Victoria sat for Wyon at Windsor Castle on 25 August 1837, two months after she became queen, then again the following day and again two days after that.[50] Victoria sat again for him on 15 and 16 September.[51]

Designs for the new coinage, together with an example of the sovereign were submitted to Victoria by the master of the Mint, Henry Labouchere, on 15 February 1838, with the required designs having been described by an order in council dated 26 July 1837. They were approved on 26 February 1838.[52]

The new coinage was subject to several delays. Merlen, who engraved the reverses of the precious metal coins (the coppers were engraved by Wyon), was slow to complete his work, and did not complete the work for all denominations until 1839.[53] The first of Victoria's coins to be released were dated 1838.[54]

The William IV coinage

List of William IV coins
Denomination Obverse Reverse Reverse designer and date of design if earlier Years struck with William IV obverse; later usage of reverse
Double sovereign Jean Baptiste Merlen[22] 1831[22]
Sovereign Jean Baptiste Merlen[55] 1831–1833, 1834–1837[55]
Half sovereign Jean Baptiste Merlen[56] 1831, 1834–1837[56]
Crown Jean Baptiste Merlen[20] 1831, 1832, 1834[57]
Half crown Jean Baptiste Merlen[58] 1831, 1834–1837[58]
Shilling Jean Baptiste Merlen [59] 1831, 1834–1837; last used in 1901.[60]
Sixpence Jean Baptiste Merlen [61] 1831, 1834–1837;[61] last used in 1910.[62]
Fourpence (groat) William Wyon[63] 1836, 1837; last used in 1888[63]
Threepence Jean Baptiste Merlen (1822)[64] 1834–1837;[65] last used in 1926.[66]
Maundy coinage Jean Baptiste Merlen (1822)[67] 1831–1837;[68] last used in 2025.[68][69]
Three halfpence Jean Baptiste Merlen [24] 1834–1837[24]
Penny William Wyon (1825)[70] 1831, 1834, 1837 ; last used in 1860.[71]
Halfpenny William Wyon (1825)[72] 1831, 1834, 1837; last used in 1860.[73]
Farthing William Wyon (1826)[74] 1831, 1834–1837; last used in 1860.[75]
Half farthing William Wyon (1828)[76] 1837[76]
Third farthing William Wyon (1827)[77] 1835; last used in 1844.[78]

References

  1. ^ a b "William IV (1765–1837)". BBC. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  2. ^ "Charles III and Britain's Oldest Ascending Monarchs". Hearst Networks UK. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  3. ^ Linecar, p. 102–106.
  4. ^ Forrer, p. 38.
  5. ^ Dyer & Gaspar, pp. 492–493.
  6. ^ Jones, p. 43.
  7. ^ a b c Jones, p. 290.
  8. ^ Jones, p. 63.
  9. ^ a b Marsh, p. 21.
  10. ^ Bennett, p. 47.
  11. ^ a b Seaby, p. 151.
  12. ^ Celtel & Gullbekk, p. 99.
  13. ^ a b Jones, p. 291.
  14. ^ Spink predecimal, pp. 485–486.
  15. ^ a b Jones, pp. 233–234.
  16. ^ a b Linecar, p. 103.
  17. ^ Lobel, pp. 454, 468.
  18. ^ Marsh, p. 23.
  19. ^ a b Marsh, p. 27.
  20. ^ a b Lobel, p. 487.
  21. ^ a b c d Seaby, p. 152.
  22. ^ a b c Lobel, p. 439.
  23. ^ a b c Spink predecimal, p. 482.
  24. ^ a b c Lobel, p. 577.
  25. ^ Peck, p. 400.
  26. ^ Jones, p. 267.
  27. ^ "Gaining acceptance". Royal Mint Museum. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
  28. ^ Jones, p. 294.
  29. ^ Zimmerman, p. 655.
  30. ^ Dyer & Gaspar, pp. 393–394.
  31. ^ Lobel, pp. 427, 439.
  32. ^ Jones, p. 49.
  33. ^ Marsh, pp. 118–119.
  34. ^ Dyer & Gaspar, p. 487.
  35. ^ Chalmers, p. 234.
  36. ^ Spink predecimal, p. 486.
  37. ^ Dyer & Gaspar, pp. 486–487.
  38. ^ Ruding, p. 23.
  39. ^ Chalmers, p. 110 n. §.
  40. ^ Chalmers, p. 120.
  41. ^ Chalmers, p. 209.
  42. ^ Chalmers, pp. 209–210.
  43. ^ Chalmers, p. 366.
  44. ^ Spink predecimal, p. 488.
  45. ^ Chalmers, p. 312.
  46. ^ Chalmers, p. 313.
  47. ^ Lobel, pp. 617–618.
  48. ^ Dyer & Gaspar, p. 488.
  49. ^ Spink predecimal, pp. 482–488.
  50. ^ Jones, p. 61.
  51. ^ Jones, p. 71.
  52. ^ Marsh, pp. 27–28.
  53. ^ Jones, pp. 71–72.
  54. ^ Seaby, p. 153.
  55. ^ a b Lobel, p. 454.
  56. ^ a b Lobel, p. 468.
  57. ^ Lobel, p. 488.
  58. ^ a b Lobel, p. 509.
  59. ^ Lobel, p. 534.
  60. ^ Lobel, pp. 534–536.
  61. ^ a b Lobel, p. 547.
  62. ^ Spink predecimal, p. 556.
  63. ^ a b Lobel, pp. 559–560.
  64. ^ Lobel, pp. 563–566.
  65. ^ Lobel, pp. 564–566.
  66. ^ Lobel, p. 567.
  67. ^ Lobel, pp. 555–556, 564.
  68. ^ a b Lobel, p. 556.
  69. ^ "2025 Maundy Money Four-Coin Silver Proof Charles III Set". The Britannia Coin Company. Retrieved 14 May 2025.
  70. ^ Lobel, pp. 583–584.
  71. ^ Lobel, pp. 584, 586.
  72. ^ Lobel, p. 599.
  73. ^ Lobel, pp. 599–600..
  74. ^ Lobel, p. 610.
  75. ^ Lobel, pp. 610–612.
  76. ^ a b Lobel, p. 617.
  77. ^ Lobel, p. 619.
  78. ^ Lobel, pp. 619–620.

Sources

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