Scottish and Irish Mints

Money was a political issue, particularly at a time in which national boundaries, constitutions and relationships were being heavily debated. The Union between England and Scotland in 1707 required the recoinage of all Scottish silver to preserve ‘the standard and value throughout the United Kingdom, as now in England.’ It was agreed that any losses would be reimbursed as part of the ‘Equivalent’, the sum paid to Scotland for assuming shared liability for the English national debt.

It was also agreed that the Edinburgh Mint, which had been active from the reign of David I of Scotland (1124-1153), would continue to operate independently.

The situation had to be handled delicately, and the English Lord High Treasurer ordered the Royal Mint to assist the Edinburgh Mint as much as possible. As Master of the Mint, Newton negotiated with the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, provided horses, machines, instructions and instruments, and exchanged employees on secondments. He specifically sent the Scottish mathematician and Fellow of the Royal Society, Dr David Gregory, to assist the Edinburgh officers in assaying, rating, ‘standarding’ and book-keeping[1], along with several horses and machines. Newton sought to arrange matters ‘in such a manner that the two Mints may not interfere and obstruct on another’, and to maintain the standard between English and Scottish coins, something which proved quite difficult.

Progress was continually delayed by lack of funds, exacerbated by the fact that the Scottish Privy Council and Scottish Treasury ceased to exist on the 1st May 1708, and debates over correct payments for the recoinage dragged on into the summer of 1713. Despite the best efforts of several of the Scottish officers, the coins minted in 1709 were the last ever to be produced in Scotland. The Edinburgh Mint and its officials continued to exist until 1836, however, partly as a symbol of Scotland’s political equality and independence within the Union. [For a more detailed analysis read "Newton and the Scottish Mint"]

The situation in Ireland, meanwhile, was very different. The last Irish mints had been closed after the reign of Edward VI (1537-1553), and most members of the English government understood the country to be a colonial possession, like their territories in America. In 1699, for example, Westminster had passed the Woolen Act, restricting the production and transportation of wool manufactures in Ireland and America in order to protect the export of English-made consumer goods at the expense of these colonies.

There had been an attempt to set up a mint in Dublin by London and Irish goldsmiths in the 1660s, but this had been rejected on the grounds that it would endanger England’s economic and military security.[2] But the Irish currency and economy had been negatively affected by monetary and trade interventions by England, the collapse of the Bank of Ireland scheme at the beginning of the 1720s, as well as the fallout from the South Sea Bubble. The Irish economy was desperately short of smaller coinage, impacting the poor the hardest.

During the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714), no copper halfpennies were produced. A royal warrant in 1717 decreed the production of new copper halfpennies and farthings, slighty smaller in diameter but thicker than the previously issued copper coins. In August 1722, William Wood to strike the copper for Ireland. He would pay for the exclusive privilege of manufacturing halfpennies and farthings at his own expense at his private Mint in Bristol before shipping them across. But the acceptance of this proposal by the Treasury created ample trouble (see ). A huge crisis erupted out of fear that the coins would flood the Irish market with inferior, unregulated coins, made at an immense profit at the expense of the Irish people and without their consultation. Shopkeepers and manufacturers of all descriptions made pacts with one another not to accept the new coins, trade guilds and soldiers refused to be paid in them. The Commissioners of Revenue in Ireland objected, saying that a private coinage would be prejudicial to trade, and refused to accept them in their tax collections; the Moneyers at the Tower represented that this was an encroachment upon the province of their activities; and Newton himself was very unhappy about the risks of counterfeiting involved, and suggested that Wood prepare blanks only, to be sent to the Tower Mint for stamping. Petitions against them were produced across Ireland, and Jonathan Swift even wrote against the scheme in his Drapier’s Letters. Nevertheless the coinage went ahead at Bristol, with Newton appointed as official Comptroller. There were further complaints from the Irish Parliament and, on 10 April 1724, John Scrope writes to the Privy Council and "asks Newton to send an expert to Bristol to examine his coins". On 13 April Newton "suggests it would be preferable and cheaper for Wood's pyx to be brought to London for testing, though he will send a man to Bristol if the Treasury prefers". The Trial of the Pyx proved satisfactory and so the coinage continued. The table drawn up by Newton concerns all the copper coined by Wood before the Trial, which was held in April 1724.

Copper coinage of half-pence and farthings for Ireland, coined in Bristol, from June 1723 to March 1724 (adjusted for year beginning 1 Jan). Not included: odd ounces.

This whole crisis damaged the English government, as well as wider trade and commerce, creating immense tension between the Irish parliament on one side, against King George I and Robert Walpole’s Whig government on the other. It threw up contentious issues relating to nationalism, constitutionalism and economics, and resulted in the dismissal of Ireland’s Lord Lieutenant and a complete abandonment of the scheme.