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| The Wellington Silver Tokens.
The Wellington series as listed in our current catalogues of Canadian pre-Confederation tokens is a complicated one. Some tokens probably were struck expressly for Canada , some not but extensively used here, and yet others really had nothing to do with Canada either by intent or usage. Almost certainly the Wellington "Battle Half- pennies" that are known struck in silver fall into the last category - even though their common copper counterparts were probably of the second.
That shown above enlarged (actually about 27 ½ mm) - a Br-987 / WE-11A2 - in silver quite possibly was the main such off-metal piece. Today we know of three varieties of the Br-987 in silver: WE-11A1, A2 and A3 - as well as a Br-986 / WE-11B7. For its original recorded purpose, there should be only one and although all are scarce to very rare, the most common seems to be that shown above, the A2. But what was their original purpose? Therein is a story.
By July, 1812, General Arthur Wellesley was supreme allied commander of the British, Spanish and Portuguese forces in the " Peninsula " and was now Lord Wellington since the victory at Talavera (July 28, 1809). He would not become the Duke of Wellington until after the restoration of the Bourbons to the French throne in 1814.
We should note that the first issues of both the Br-987 and -986 were not struck for his use but rather as English "Nineteenth Century" copper token issues for a private person who chose to ride the wave of current Wellington popularity by commemorating the man and his victories on his issues. The issuer in question was John Kirby Picard, the owner of the Hull Lead Works, a firm that had already issued some "plain-jane" copper pieces. But it was enough to teach Picard the in's-and-out's of token issuing - its manufacturers, costs and so forth.
A good many collectors assume that because there were all these copper "Nineteenth Century" issues, it was caused by a dearth of regal coin. But it wasn't - not for copper. There was all sorts of it around, so much as to sometime elicit complaints. Back in 1806/7, the British government had contracted Boulton's Soho Mint for so many farthings, halfpennies and pennies - (£403,192 face value although we still don't know the breakdown by year and denomination) - that no more copper had to be struck by the Royal Mint until 1821 when an issue of farthings was made, in part a make-work project to keep the Mint busy. Then why the issues of private persons?
Because they could. To use a pun, "There was good money to be made in making money". Most of the issuers were factory owners with a need for a lot of minor coin to make up the pay packets of their none-too-highly-paid workers. Through a gray-zone loophole in British currency law, they were allowed to make their own - rendered all the more certain and easier by the fact that most of them were wealthy and well-connected. So for half or two-thirds face, they could issue their own "coin" - actually a company token. These they would "circulate" by foisting them onto their workers through the payroll, take it or go without. Of course, such tokens had to be redeemable and they were - but only in quantity. Many read "A Pound (Bank of England note) for 240 (if pennies) or 480 (if halfpennies) of these tokens". Workmen could hardly be expected to accumulate so many and the high-value (to them) note was of less use than the tokens. So these tokens locally supplemented the already-overabundant regal coppers. In 1817, the
Lt. & Ctr.: Picard's first token issue. Rt.: John Kirby Picard
government ordered all these tokens redeemed face-for-face in "real money" but the rather short redemption periods saw many of them escape, to the profit of their original issuers.
John Kirby Picard was a factory owner producing lead products in Hull with the main distribution point being his warehouse in London . Some of these tokens read "Payable by I.K. Picard at his lead works in Hull or at 184 Upper Thames Street London ". A rich man with blueblood antecedents, he circulated with ease among the rich and powerful and was noted for his fine table, well-stocked cellar and high-stakes gambling. Too much: Picard was declared a bankrupt in 1826.
Some time after late July, 1812 (we can narrow the date down to the period between the last victory on the Br-987 of July 22 and that on the Br-986 of just after August 12), he conceived of the notion to honour the popular Wellington on tokens and engaged the mint of Edward Thomason in Birmingham to produce them. Thomason in turn had one of the city's better-known diesinkers, Thomas Halliday, engrave the dies and such was Picard's clout that the portrait was from a effigy provided by no less than Mrs. Wellesley-Pole, wife of one of Wellington's elder brothers. The project obviously went forward speedily and the public in turn snapped up these high-quality tokens as medallic souvenirs which, moreover, cost but a halfpenny. So admired were they by Picard's high circle of friends that he was invited to the court of the Prince Regent, the future George IV and already the actual king of Britain , to display them. For the occasion, Picard had Thomason strike off an unknown (but appropriate) number in silver for distribution. In addition, one was also struck in gold, presumably for "Prinny", and this showed up in an auction sale by Young & Co. of Sheffield in 1867, then (so far as I know) completely dropped from sight. Since not too many of these silver pieces would have been required - probably no more than a hundred and quite possibly a lot less - we can see that a single set of dies would more than have sufficed in their production. In fact, total press time would probably have been no more than a couple of minutes. For this first presentation issue, then, it seems logical that only one variety should exist - so how come there are three others known?
Thomason would not have been too different from his former neighbour (and Thomason's first master years before) old Matthew Boulton of the Soho Mint, now dead since 1809. Both, from time to time, produced a few off-metal strikes of their higher quality works, called in Britain "pieces de plaisir". These were for gifts to visiting dignitaries, presentation to selected friends or even "salesmen's samples" when they were trying to secure a coining contract. That's probably the category of the other three varieties and possibly some 11A2's as well. Inevitably only one or a few such pieces were produced at the time and today are scarce to very rare, all very pricey. But the silver tokens never had any connection to Canada . Most of the others did, though, even the Br-987's and -986's when produced in copper.
Some time after had Picard issued his copper tokens to a very receptive public, he was "blessed" with the sincerest form of flattery: they were counterfeited. The brass WE-11A7 from an obviously inferior hand is one such. Picard took these as an insult to his dignity and on 13 August 1813 he advertised for the redemption of his Wellington tokens, the date of expiration to be September 7th after which he would no longer be responsible for them. His regular Hull Works tokens he continued to issue.
Lt. & Ctr.: Br-986, Picard's second issue of " Wellington "s. Rt.: (Sir) Edward Thomason This was the end of the "regular" issue of the silver tokens, their need for presentation and prestige fulfilled. Even so, it seems evident that on future occasions, Thomason struck a few others using dies for the Br-986 and -987 for gifts, curios or advertising purposes.
The silver Wellington tokens, then, never had anything to do with Canada nor were they ever anything other than a sort of keepsake or collectors curios in England alone. Certainly they were never "patterns for silver shilling tokens", a conclusion hastily arrived at by some earlier collectors.
A brief wrapup: Although the copper Wellington tokens were through in England , they went on to a new and bigger career. Wellington 's armies in the Peninsula had a great need for copper pieces for soldiers' pay, the paymasters being habitually stiffed by the local moneychangers when purchasing "reis" and "maravedis". With British regal coin (presumably also including the coppers) illegal to export, Wellington turned to a token issue that would circumvent the problem and Picard's issue was the best known. Therefore, John Kirby Picard was appointed "agent for the army" to supply such an issue, which he readily did through Thomason's mint. The issues would include the "Battle Halfpennies" of Br-987, -986 and -988 (in that order according to the inscription dates and may have also included some of the heavier "non-Battle" pieces) as well as the pennies Br-970, -970a, -974 and -984. In all Thomason wrote that he had suuplied "upwards of two million pieces". All were struck from late 1812 through 1813 - possibly very early 1814. We can also reasonably assume that Picard would have included his withdrawn "English" issue in some future shipments to Portugal/Spain.
In the late spring and early summer of 1814, some 13,000 Peninsular troops were shipped directly from their occupation duties in France to Montreal to take part in the War of 1812. In every soldier's pocket was his change, most of it in coppers - and presumably overwhelmingly " Wellingtons ". The coins proved immediately popular in coin-starved Montreal and sparked a flurry of imitations (and possibly even restrikes) in lighter weight. By 1817, the "lightweights" were the cause of many complaints, but nothing of an official nature was ever done.
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Aug 2008Scenes from the Berlin Mint, 1876
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