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n I touched on our national eccentricitiesnyesterday, and one aspect of this is the design on our coinage. The old style,npre-decimal coins had interesting, if somewhat staid, designs – a wren of thenfarthing, the Golden Hind on the half-penny, a thrift plant on the three-pennynpiece, and so on. The tails side of the penny had Britannia.
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| Pre-Decimal Britannia Penny |
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nBritannia was thenold Roman name for the province, and from the second century a femalenpersonification of Britannia began to appear on Roman coins. The place name wasneventually shortened to Britain, often Great Britain, (not because it is sonwonderful – Greater, or Great, Britain was used to distinguish it from LessernBritain, or Brittany, now northern France but once ruled by the Kings ofnBritain). The ‘modern’ figure of Britannia was modelled on Frances TeresanStuart (later, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox), a great Restoration beauty whonfamously refused to become the mistress of Charles II, (although there arenrumours she eventually bore him a daughter), who sat as a model, reported bynSamuel Pepys, that he,
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n“… did observe the King’s new medall, where, innlittle, there is Mrs. Steward’s face as well done as ever I saw any-thing in mynwhole life, I think: and a pretty thing it is, that he should choose her facento represent Britannia by.”n
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nPepys Diary February 25thn1667.
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| Frances Teresa Stuart by Sir Peter Lely |
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nIn Victorian times, Britannia came to represent the British Empire, herntrident signifying her naval power, her shield and helmet signifying thenprotection of the Pax Britannica, and her accompanying lion the strength of thenEmpire. Britannia was used on the decimal fifty pence piece, at first with thenwords ‘New Pence’ and from 1982 ‘Fifty Pence’, and by then carrying an olivenbranch of peace.
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| Fifty Pence Britannia coin |
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nThe Britannia figure was eventually withdrawn in 2008, although the Banknof England has said that there are no plans to withdraw existing coins fromncirculation.
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| 50th Anniversary of Normandy Landings 1994 |
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nThe fifty pence piece has featured a wide variety of differentndesigns on the reverse – in 1994 an ‘invasion’ design was made, to commemoratenthe fiftieth anniversary of D-Day.
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| 250 years of Johnson’s Dictionary 2005 |
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nIn 2005, to celebrate 250 years, a designn(by Tom Phillips) based on Dr Johnson’s Dictionary was issued, probably thenfirst coin to use Anglo-Saxon script for over a thousand years. There have beennumpteen other designs too, and a look at the Royal Mint website is worth doing.nI was not surprised then, but a bit puzzled, when I found this one in my changenthe other day. It’s obviously a fifty pence piece, but why five dolphins?
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nActually, it’s a 50p from Gibraltar, probably brought home by a holidaymakernand spent in error (I think I might just keep it). I have mentioned CharlesnDarwin on the ten-pound note previously,nbut in 2009, he turned up again on the £2 coin. I can’t see that happening innAmerica, somehow.
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nThe current coins are actually a jig-saw – get a full set andnyou can make a shield with them – is that eccentric enough for you?
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