August 12th. 2016.   

August

·        Sadly, it has not been possible to organise a summer social this year. However, we will be reintroducing the Skittles evening in October, watch this space...

Monday 5th September.

Monday 3rd October.

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

 

July Meeting

For the talk this month we welcomed a new speaker to our club, Megan Gooch who works for the Historic Royal Palaces organisation.  In her very enlightening and eloquently delivered talk Megan spoke about the many aspects of organising a coinage exhibition for visitors to the Tower of London.

For the first part of her talk Megan spoke about how the Tower Mint developed over time, with the obvious in-built security making it ideal for making money. She covered the various structural developments, well illustrated with a 1794 diagram showing the locations within the curtain walls of all the various manufacturing shops, offices, dwellings and warehouses. The site of the Mint, prior to the curtain walls being built, was no doubt influenced by being adjacent to Goldsmiths Hall for it was the goldsmiths that developed into money lenders & financiers.

The second part of the talk covered the aims of the exhibition and how the format was developed based upon visitors expectations, assessed from the surveys carried out. It was realised early on that most visitors to the Tower only have a passing interest in numismatics so that rows of coins were not going to work, especially when most visitors go to see the Crown Jewels. In the current environment, the exhibition also had to be educational and a place of learning for both visitors and school parties (and I suspect to get management approval). After much deliberation it was decided to tell a series of stories illustrated with a few coins based around key themes that included Protection, Production, Propaganda, Interesting people and coins as a powerful symbol of Monarchy.

Having decided the parameters of the exhibition design, companies were engaged to develop the structure of the exhibits using much modern technology, dioramas, interactive displays, animation and visual effects. From the pictures shown, the final results looked very impressive. One interesting snippet was that any changes to the Tower structure, however minor, were forbidden. So the initial ideas of the design company for alterations were out & they had to work with the rooms as they were.

The actual exhibition focused on five periods in history and associated stories, with other bits interspersed, such as making ones own hammered coin and interactive conversations with virtual reality medieval personalities. There is even an App for the electronically minded.                                     Briefly the five periods are as follows:

 

Edward I. The Tower becomes the sole Mint but there is a loss of faith in the quality of the currency. So the King blames the Moneyers and many are arrested, maimed and executed. The Jews, many of whom are goldsmiths, financiers and lenders, are also blamed and several hundred are arrested and executed.  Once gone Edward seized their wealth which swelled his own coffers

 

 

Elizabeth 1. The idea here is to show how Henry 8th debased the coinage and how Elizabeth put things right. The exhibit shows the equipment and processes for assaying, some of Henry’s lousy silver coins & some Elizabeth’s finer ones. Interestingly analysis has shown that forged coins were coming from the Mint, confirming Henry as a total rogue.

 

 

 

Charles II. The theme is modernisation & propaganda showing coins being made on a screw press with lettered edges to prevent clipping. The stories covered are Charles’s animosity towards Cromwell and Simon’s Petition Crown that failed because he made coins for Cromwell. There is an interactive screw press exhibit.

 

 

 

William III & Isaac Newton.  This exhibit tells the story of the coinage crisis with worn out hammered coins & much forgery leading to the Great Re-coinage where all hammered coins were remade into milled money. With regard to the Mint the story of Newton the innovator & his work to improve efficiency is told along with his pursuit and entrapment of the audacious forger, William Chaloner. This was a cat and mouse tale with Chaloner telling Newton that the Mint had a forgery problem within, and he could fix the problem. Just imagine if Chaloner had had access to genuine Mint dies. Eventually Newton got his man and Chaloner was executed, since forgery was classed as high treason.

 

 

George III. Once again there is the story of another coinage crisis, temporarily resolved by the issue of countermarked 8 Reales. The need for the Mint to move to larger premises is covered. But perhaps more to the taste of the general public is the story of Mr Turnbull. He was a Mint worker who hid in a cupboard. When his colleagues were taking lunch he emerged from hiding and ran off with the day’s production of Guineas. He went on a spending spree and was then intent on going to France. Unfortunately for him he was apprehended at Dover, being recognised from a wanted poster. The person who recognised him not only claimed the reward but took Turnbull’s booking on the ferry and had a trip to France. The exhibit is a diorama of Turnbull emerging from the cupboard & other parts of the tale.

 

Our thanks go to Megan for a superb talk, which from feedback, was very well appreciated by the membership.

Subscriptions

Be reminded that subscriptions are now due. It would be most appreciated if members yet to renew their subscription would please do so at the next meeting. Please see our treasurer Peter. Membership cards are now available for paid-up members.

Future Events

Past Events

·         Ten years ago the talk was on “East India Coinage Outside India” by John Roberts-Lewis

Club Secretary.