The Other English Mints

In Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, coins had been produced by large numbers of moneyers using private workshops in dozens of towns and cities across the country. From 1279, however, the number of mints in England was reduced, and brought into a unified system controlled by the London mint. A few local and episcopal mints continued to operate, but from 1553, all coins were produced in the Tower of London. During the English Civil War of 1642 and 1651, however, Royalist strongholds at the castles of Pontefract, Newark, Carlisle and Scarborough all produced their own coins to secure the loyalty of soldiers fighting against the Parliamentarians. Charles I also moved his court to Oxford and established a mint in the city and strengthen his power.

During the coinage crisis of William III’s new reign, anger was increasingly directed towards the government’s handling of money and the fear that wealth was draining from the country. Hopton Haynes explained that the Country Mints were necessitated by the ‘great clamours and uneasiness of people in all parts of the Nation... The enemies of government had industriously spread a report that the king and his ministers intended to drain the nation of their money, bring it all to the Tower, and when ‘twas new coined, carry it all over to his armies and friends abroad.’[1]

The Treasury was flooded with petitions from towns across the country, begging for Mints that would create jobs, and inject much needed currency into local markets. Petitioners from Leicester wrote how ‘the poor do labour under manifold difficulties: their masters, the managers of the woollen manufacture, and other neighbours not being able to continue them in their usual employments… [they] are likely to fall under utter ruin or else must become an unsupportable charge to your petitioners in their respective parishes.’[2] Mints were set up in the important trading towns of Norwich, York, Chester, Bristol, and Exeter.

The chart below shows a table of the clipped money, plate, and bullion imported at the country Mints of Bristol, Chester, Exeter, Norwich and York before November 4, 1696, to be used for the Great Recoinage of 1696-99.

Country Mints relied heavily on local networks of administrators, contractors, and powerful merchants, and were largely staffed by townsfolk and day-labourers. Friendly faces and local enthusiasm was required to convince people to surrender their silver for the national good, particularly when there was no guarantee of a quick refund. But this meant that the London Mint often struggled to control these work sites.

One example is the Chester Mint. Newton had arranged for the appointment of the astronomer Edmond Halley as Deputy Comptroller for £90 per annum, who dutifully kept him abreast of what was happening. The Deputy Master disappeared for months at a time, refusing to respond to orders from London and issuing coins out of turn to persons who brought silver to the Mint, presumably for local favours. Fraud was also suspected on the part of one of his assistants, Edward Lewis. In June 1697. Newton wrote to Halley in response to his suspicion of ‘some foule Play either among the Tellers in the Melting house or both whereby the Money comes out worse than heretofore.’[3]

Halley repeatedly called on Newton’s protection and influence to have the Deputy Master, 'that proud, insolent fellow’ removed, while Thomas Neale defended the Deputy Master to the Treasury.[4] It eventually erupted into a challenge of a duel. The Tower Mint Master, Warden and Comptroller were forced to issue a remonstration in August 1697: ‘Till Wee come let there be no further quarrelling, but let the publick business be peaceably carry’d-on... for the Mint will not allow the drawing of Swords, & assaulting any, nor ought such Language, Wee hear has been, be used any more among you.’[5]