Anniversary of the Pound Coin

 This month we will look at the date 21st April and two connections specific to that date. 

The first is for April 1983 when the Royal Mint introduced the ‘new’ pound coin (right). Pound notes were in circulation until 1988 when they were finally withdrawn. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the pound coin.

At this time in 1983, there were 443,053,510 coins minted. The obverse side of the coin shows a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, drawn by artist Arnold Machin. In this portrait the Queen is wearing the “Girls of Great Britain and Ireland” tiara which was a wedding present to the Duchess of York, later Queen Mary in 1893. In November 1947 she gave the tiara as a wedding present to her granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth. The Queen wore the tiara regularly throughout her rein and is depicted wearing it on certain issues of British and Commonwealth banknotes and coinage.

This portrait was in use from 1968 until 1984. Machin’s portrait of the Queen has also been used on British stamps since 1969. The reverse side of the coin shows the Royal Arms. The edge of the coin bears the inscription from Virgil’s Aeneid ‘Decus Et Tutamen‘ which translates as an ornament and a safeguard.

From 1985 to 1997, the coin’s artist was Raphael Maklouf, where the Queen was depicted as wearing the George IV State Diadem (top left). This crown was commissioned by George IV in 1820 at a cost of £8,216. He wore it over his velvet cap of maintenance in the procession to his coronation. It is decorated with four bouquets of roses, thistles and shamrocks the floral symbols of England, Scotland and Ireland.

From 1997 to 2016, the artist was Ian Rank-Broadley, who depicted the Queen wearing a tiara (bottom left).

Three different £1 coins were issued in 2015 – The standard (unchanging) reverse design by Matthew Dent coupled with both the 1998-2015 Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of the Queen, and the new Jody Clark fifth portrait of the Queen.

In 2016 the new 12-sided coin was introduced (top left) – it was meant to be more difficult to counterfeit. Jody Clark’s portrait continues to be used and the obverse side features all four floral symbols including the leek for Wales.

We will now look at the history of pound coins and notes.

The first pound coin (bottom left) appeared in the reign of Henry VII, when it was called a Sovereign – it was first minted during 1489.

The first note to be issued by the Bank of England was in 1797, it followed the gold shortage created by the French Revolutionary Wars. The early notes were handwritten on one side, and issued to the individual bearing their name, dated and with the name of the cashier. Between 1797 and 1821, with the lack of gold bullion the Bank of England couldn’t issue any bank notes, until after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. After with the conclusion of the wars in 1815, pound notes were issued to the equivalent amount of gold presented at the bank.

1821 saw the introduction of gold sovereigns.

We now go forward to the outbreak of the First World War. The British Government wanted to maintain its gold stock, so banks stopped issuing gold and the coins were replaced with pound notes. The Treasury, during 1914 issued two different types of pound notes. The first during August called the 1st Series (top right) and the other the 2nd Series was issued in October. These notes were referred to as “Johns”, bearing the signature of John Bradbury, Secretary to the Treasury. It wouldn’t be until 1921 that these notes were withdrawn from circulation.

The third in the series bearing John Bradbury’s name was issued by the Treasury during January 1917 (right). It was the first note bearing the king’s portrait and, on the reverse, an illustration of the Houses of Parliament. This note was in circulation until 1933.

After WWI the first pound note, now green in colour, to be issued was Series A (bottom right). This was the first note to be printed and it was the first time that the note had the declaration “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of one pound”. The signature of the issuing cashier was replaced by the printed signature of the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, in September 1939, there was a threat of a Nazi plan to forge British paper money “Operation Bernhard”, and bring about the collapse of the British economy. To overcome this threat, the Treasury issued the Emergency Wartime Issue, in 1940. This note was orange and blue in colour (top left) and it also had a metal thread running through it. This note was in circulation until May 1962.

Following the Second World War, in 1948 the notes returned to their original green colour (left), and in 1960 a new note was issued that was slightly narrower than previous notes and for the first time featured a portrait of the Queen (left). The reverse of the note depicted the Bank of England’s logo. These were replaced in 1978 and the reverse featured a picture of Isaac Newton (bottom pic left). These were superseded in April 1983 by the one-pound coin – the rest as they say is history.

Copyright - The Bay Magazine,  April 2023