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Britain 's Decimal Florin .
After Napoleon had occupied a good part of Europe, he habitually imposed a decimal currency on each country but even after Waterloo , the change was so useful that it was usually retained. Britain , of course, was never subjected to such a change but by the mid-19th Century, her Sterling currency system was badly out of step with an overwhelmingly "decimal" Europe .
The British were well aware of the decimal advantages. Currently, with 4 farthings to a penny, 12 pennies to a shilling and 20 shillings to the pound, computation was extremely cumbersome: addition and subtraction were bad enough but multiplication and division even worse - as could be vouched for by British students and just about everyone in British commerce. In "decimal", only whole numbers were used with a decimal point being moved. Decimal propositions and agitations were old hat in Britain . As far back as 1682 economist Sir William Petty urged the farthings to be made five to the penny so "you may keep all accompts in a way of Decimal Arithmetik" and a little later, Sir Christopher Wren proposed that an ounce of silver be coined into a hundred parts.
But the quandry, if not insuperable, was nearly so. At nearly $5 U.S. (actually $4.867), the Pound had a value neither fish nor fowl; with 240 pence to a pound, 1/00th would be an inconvenient 2.4 pence while 1/1000th would be valued just a hair under that of the relatively unpopular farthing while the very popular halfpenny and penny would have to be replaced by an approximate 1/500th and 1/250th of a pound respectively - which weren't really decimal any more. Yet the pound sterling was the world's strongest currency and most British were loathe to dump it.
The method that would have had to be used was in many ways the least desireable of all. In order to go decimal, Britain would have had to eliminate the pound as a "master denomination" and replace it with something worth a quarter or fifth as much. Then all British coin would have to be recalled within a very short time, replaced from a stockpile on hand of tens of millions of new coin. The changeover would be terribly expensive and beyond the capability of the Royal Mint which at the time could do little more than keep up with current demand. When Britain did finally go decimal in 1971 with 100 New pence to the Pound, the "paper pound" had a buying value only a fraction of what it had been back in 1848. Even then, a new mint had to be constructed to handle the billions of coins required.
Agitation for decimal adoption was loud, even to the successful passing of such a bill sponsored by the notable decimalist, Sir John Bowring, in the House of Commons (27 April 1847). Backed into a corner, the administration promised the immediate appearance of a one-tenth pound coin and "further consideration of lower members of the series". This was mere damage control, the hope being that the provision of a 2-shilling piece (one-tenth pound) would forestall further insistence on the impossible. There was almost certainly no intention beyond "consideration" of the other coins.
The new one-tenth-pound coin, unnamed as yet, was in many ways artificial and unneeded since the reasonably popular half-crown was already in current circulation. While the new coin would be 2-shillings in value, the half-crown was 2s6d and the sizes were much the same as well, the new coin about 28mm versus 30mm for the halfcrown. Recognizing this, the British government announced the cessation of the half-crown for a period of time in order to give the new coin a chance, after which the British people would decide which would be kept. Consequently, the halfcrown was not struck for circulation during the years 1851-73.
The year 1848 was a busy one for the new coin as a number of patterns were manufactured for consideration - and its very name finally established.
Although the lineage of the patterns is strictly according to the writer's assumptions, it seems logical that the first would be those with the same "Wyon Head" of Victoria as appeared on the rest of the current coin; it wasn't the only one.
Subsequent consideration seemed to support a change from the usual "Wyon Head" to another different obverse design in order that the similar-size new one-tenth pound coin not be confused with the halfcrown in circulation. The genesis of this new obverse is not difficult to trace: the "Gothic Crown" of 1847 which nevertheless appeared only as some 8,000 collectors' proofs. The Gothic effigy was lifted from the crown and reduced to the appropriate size and in that form combined with different reverses, the first of which evidently was the following:
Although this particular obverse was not used long on British home coin, it reappeared some 15 years later (1862/3) in modified form on the bronze coinage of Hong Kong and British India .
With the following pattern, the denomination name was fixed in place and appeared as the circulating coin in 1849.
This was not the first time Britain had used a florin. Back in 1344, Edward III had instituted a gold coin with the value of 3 shillings that was also called a "florin" (the name a takeoff from a widely-used gold coin of that name from the Italian city-state of Florence ). Edward's gold florin had a fairly impressive diameter as that shown below in
about actual size attests, but it was actually quite light, being extremely thin, and was consequently neither well received nor lasted too long. Contrary to what many believe, the British silver florin of 1848 did not receive its name from this old gold piece; actually it was derived from the current silver Netherlands 1-gulden piece from just across the Channel. Of approximately the same size, this coin had been a "florin" until 1808 when it was changed to a "gulden" (but with hardly any other change save the name) and made the "master decimal" currency unit by Louis Napoleon. At the time, Holland was under French occupation. But even forty years later, the British still habitually called this unit by its old name, "a Dutch florin".
A limited number of the last 1848 florin pattern shown were issued to collectors as proofs with both milled and plain edges (the latter the more common). This test balloon seeming to be reasonably successful, the florin went into regular production in 1849.
And there it ran into a fire storm. With the simple obverse inscription VICTORIA REGINA 1849, the public demanded to know why "Fidei Defensor" ("Defender of the Faith") and especially "Dei Gratia" ("By the Grace of God") had been omitted. Religious passions ran much higher then and dark rumours circulated to the effect that Mintmaster Shiel, an Irish Roman Catholic, was undermining the Protestant religion. Consequently, after a modest quantity of only about 414,000 florins had been issued, production was stopped - and none appeared at all in 1850. The "currency hole" was filled by resumed mintages of the halfcrown in 1849 and 1850.
This time, the obverse of the florin was reproduced whole-hog from that of the short-lived "Gothic crown". Not only was the lettering made Gothic, the date was somewhat obscured by appearing in Gothic Roman numerals at the tail end of the inscription. The reverse, in general remaining the same, nevertheless had some of its former "busyness" cleaned up.
As noted above, the halfcrown was discontinued in 1850 as a circuating coin in order to give the florin a chance and, save for a few years as limited-edition collectors' proofs, stayed suspended until 1874; in that year, the general public was asked to render its verdict: florin or halfcrown. Opinions were strong - although divided almost equally between the "pro-florins" and "pro-halfcrowns". So, in typical political fashion an attempt was made to please both by pleasing neither: the florin was kept and made a standard denomination in the currency - but the halfcrown was brought back and given the same status. And in this way they coexisted right up until 1970, after which Britain went decimal, the florin becoming "10 New Pence" and the halfcrown disappearing.
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