Establishing the ROYAL MINT MUSEUM

The Royal Mint has a history stretching back over 1000 years and perhaps because of its longevity it has no founding charter. The Royal Mint Museum, on the other hand, being a mere 200 years old does have such a document. It takes the form of a memorandum signed by William Wellesley Pole, who was Master of the Mint at the time, and is dated 12 February 1816. Very clearly it states that Pole observed with some concern the absence of a collection of coins and medals located within the Mint. Henceforth, it notes, there will be such a collection and it will be made up of proof pieces and coinage tools. The question that arises, though, is why Pole’s thoughts turned to this question early in 1816.

One possible explanation is that establishing the collection was connected with the coinage reforms of that very year. The reference here is to the woeful state of the silver in circulation during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Successive governments had failed to address the structural problem of a currency system weighted too heavily in favour of gold and it