"Master of the Mint whose jobs was act as a contractor to the crown many wardens advanced later on to become Master of the Mint with some wardens holding both offices at the same time. The most illustrious holder of the office of Warden of the Mint was Isaac Newton, who was warranted to this position on the recommendation of his friend, Montagu, Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1698. In 1699 however, Newton undertook the office of Master of the Mint, which was far more lucrative, as well as potentially more technically challenging. After the death of the final warden"
"is attributed to Isaac Newton, who was appointed Master of the Mint in 1699. Although the metal used in most modern fiat coins has insignificant intrinsic value, modern milling can be a deterrent to counterfeiting, an aid to the blind to distinguish different denominations, or purely decorative. In the process of sweating, coins were placed in a bag and shaken. The bits of metal that had worn off the coins were recovered from the bottom of the bag. Sweating tended to wear the coin in a more natural way than clipping, and so was harder to detect. If the coin"
"the Master of the Mint and then Chemist of the Royal Mint (1869), Professor of Metallurgy at the School of Mines (1880) and Chemist and Assayer to the Royal Mint (1882–1902). He developed procedures for the analysis of alloy constituents and an automatic recording pyrometer used to record temperature changes in furnaces and molten materials;. He became a world authority on the technical aspects of minting coins. His work had many practical and industrial applications. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1875 and was their Bakerian Lecturer in 1896. He was made CB in 1890"
"Master of the Mint Master of the Mint was an important office in the governments of Scotland and England, and later Great Britain, between the 16th and 19th centuries. The Master was the highest officer in the Royal Mint. Until 1699, appointment was usually for life. Its holder occasionally sat in the cabinet. The office was abolished as an independent position in 1870, thereafter being held as a subsidiary office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. During the interregnum (1643-1660) the last Master of the Mint to King Charles, Sir Robert Harley, transferred his allegiance to Parliament and remained in"
"office. After his death in 1656 Aaron Guerdon was appointed. Master of the Mint Master of the Mint was an important office in the governments of Scotland and England, and later Great Britain, between the 16th and 19th centuries. The Master was the highest officer in the Royal Mint. Until 1699, appointment was usually for life. Its holder occasionally sat in the cabinet. The office was abolished as an independent position in 1870, thereafter being held as a subsidiary office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. During the interregnum (1643-1660) the last Master of the Mint to King Charles, Sir"
"in circulation. The exercise came close to disaster due to fraud and mismanagement, but was salvaged by Newton's personal intervention. Newton's chemical and mathematical knowledge proved of great use in carrying out this Great Recoinage of 1696, a process that was completed in about two years. Newton was subsequently given the post of Master of the Mint in 1699, a post worth between £1,200 and £1,500 per annum. Despite counterfeiting being considered high treason, punishable by hanging, drawing and quartering, convicting even the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult. Undaunted, Newton conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers,"
"of the narrative of his quarrels with his colleagues in the office, but it contained much information not to be found elsewhere. Several articles on the subjects in which he took most interest were contributed by him to the seventh edition of Andrew Ure's ‘Dictionary of Arts’. His daughter Gertrude Mary Ansell was a noted suffragette and animal rights activist. George Frederick Ansell George Frederick Ansell (4 March 1826 – 21 December 1880) was an English scientific inventor, chemist and assayer, and author of a standard work on the Royal Mint. Ansell was born at Carshalton on 4 March 1826."
"intended to be a sinecure, but which he took seriously. Newton was subsequently given the post of Master of the Mint in 1699. Following the 1707 union between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, Newton used his previous experience to direct the 1707–1710 Scottish recoinage, resulting in a common currency for the new Kingdom of Great Britain. After 15 September 1709 no further silver coins were ever struck in Scotland. As a result of a report written by Newton on 21 September 1717 to the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury the bimetallic relationship between gold coins"
"George Frederick Ansell George Frederick Ansell (4 March 1826 – 21 December 1880) was an English scientific inventor, chemist and assayer, and author of a standard work on the Royal Mint. Ansell was born at Carshalton on 4 March 1826. He was apprenticed for four years to a surgeon, and studied medicine with the intention of adopting a medical life as his profession, but abandoned it for chemistry. After undergoing a course of instruction at the Royal College of Chemistry, he became an assistant to August Wilhelm Hofmann at the Royal School of Mines. In 1854, he gave lectures in"
"brother Isaac, now in a senior position at the Paris Mint. He died on Christmas Eve 1646. His dies for coins and medals have been called ""gems of medallic art"". Nicholas Briot Nicholas Briot (about 1579 – 24 December 1646) was an innovative French coin engraver, medallist and mechanical engineer, who emigrated to England and became chief engraver to the Royal Mint in 1633 and is credited with the invention of the coining-press. He was born Nicolas Briot at Damblain, in Lorraine, in the Vosges department of France, a frontier town famous for its bellfounding and metalworking industries. He is"
"1991–1999. His main interests outside his work were natural history, archaeology, anthropology, ancient history, mythology and art history, mainly in the areas of ancient civilisations and tribal art. Norman Sillman Norman Henry Sillman, ARCA, FRBS (born 4 May 1921 in London, England- died 18 July 2013) was a British sculptor and a coin designer, including the one pound coins for the Royal Mint. Sillman was born in London in 1921. In 1924, the family moved to Pyramid Hill, Australia, where his father farmed. Due to severe drought they returned to England in 1934. He commenced his art studies in September"
"the Royal Mint (""Kungliga Myntet"") from 1916 until he retired in 1944. He was a professor at the Royal Swedish Academy from 1930. Many of his works are on display in the collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm . In 1902, he married Johanna Dagmar Maria Treffenberg (1875-1960). They were the parents of Folke Adolf Lindberg (born 1903) and Sven Folke Lindberg (born 1904). Johan Erik Lindberg died in Stockholm during 1966. Erik Lindberg Erik Lindberg (31 December 1873 – 28 September 1966) was a Swedish sculptor and engraver. He was best known for designing the Nobel Prize medals. Johan"
"Nicholas Briot Nicholas Briot (about 1579 – 24 December 1646) was an innovative French coin engraver, medallist and mechanical engineer, who emigrated to England and became chief engraver to the Royal Mint in 1633 and is credited with the invention of the coining-press. He was born Nicolas Briot at Damblain, in Lorraine, in the Vosges department of France, a frontier town famous for its bellfounding and metalworking industries. He is one of a distinguished Huguenot family of patternmakers, diecutters and craftsmen in metal in the 16th and 17th centuries, whose members included Francois Briot, master pewterer and medallist represented in"
"rims. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which saw the ousting of James II from power, parliament took over control of the mint from the Crown which had up until then allowed the mint to act as an independent body producing coins on behalf of the government. Under the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, Isaac Newton became the mint's warden in 1696. His role, intended to be a sinecure, was taken seriously by Newton, who went about trying to combat the country's growing problems with counterfeiting. By this time, forgeries accounted for 10% of the country's coinage,"
"appoint Newton to the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. In a letter to Newton announcing the news, Montagu writes: ""I am very glad that at last I can give you a good proof of my friendship, and the esteem the king has of your merits. Mr Overton, the warden of the mint, is made one of the Commissioners of Customs, and the king has promised me to make Mr Newton warden of the mint. The office is the most proper for you. 'Tis the chief office in the mint: 'tis worth five or six hundred pounds"
"August 1816. The twenty-shilling piece was named a sovereign, with the resurrection of the old name possibly promoted by antiquarians with numismatic interests. William Wellesley Pole, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, was appointed Master of the Mint (at that time a junior government position) in 1812, with a mandate to reform the Royal Mint. Pole had favoured retaining the guinea, due to the number extant and the amount of labour required to replace them with sovereigns. Formal instruction to the Mint came with an indenture dated February 1817, directing the Royal Mint to strike gold coins weighing 7.988"
"Robert May, Baron May of Oxford Robert McCredie May, Baron May of Oxford, HonFAIB (born 8 January 1936) is an Australian scientist who has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, President of the Royal Society, and a Professor at the University of Sydney and Princeton University. He now holds joint professorships at University of Oxford and Imperial College London. He was also a crossbench member of the House of Lords from 2001 until his retirement in 2017. May is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and an appointed member of the council of the British Science Association. He"
"of the Royal Mint, and John Lonyson as Master-Worker of the Mint. As Master, Lonyson was to accept silver and gold bullion from merchants and goldsmiths and return it in the form of coin, of such denominations, weight, and fineness as were specified in a document called an ""indenture"". In these transactions, a specified portion of the bullion was retained by the Master and Warden for their fees and to cover operating costs. As is recorded in John Stow's ""Survey of London"", a crisis arose when coins minted under Lonyson's direction were found to be consistently underweight and of less"
"John Lonyson John Lonyson or Lonison (1525–1582) was an English goldsmith and Master of the Mint in the reign of Elizabeth I. John Lonyson was of Flemish descent, one of a family of goldsmiths established In King's Lynn, Norfolk. By 1552, he had completed his apprenticeship in London, and he was admitted as a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in May 1564. Following the death of Sir Thomas Stanley, Under-Treasurer of the Mint, on 15 December 1571, the management of the Royal Mint was divided between two officers. In April 1572 the crown confirmed Richard Martin, as Warden"
"Master of the Mint. Newton had in 1702 considered the issuance of a copper penny, but no action was taken. Silver at this time came to the Royal Mint only as the by-product of mining for other substances, and from chance deposits and windfalls—the scandal-plagued South Sea Company in 1723 was obliged to send a large quantity of silver bullion to the Mint's premises in the Tower of London. Nevertheless, so little was sent overall that MP John Conduitt, Newton's successor as Master, wrote in 1730 that since December 1701, ""no silver has been imported to the Mint but what"
"Henry Slingsby (Master of the Mint) Sir Henry Slingsby (c.1621 – c.1688) was an English Master of the Mint. He was the third son of Sir William Slingsby of Kippax, West Yorkshire and was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He was appointed Deputy Master of the Mint (based in the Tower of London) to Sir Ralph Freeman from 1662 to 1667 and sole Master from 1667 to 1680. Slingsby introduced the idea of stamping the inscription ""Decus et Tutamen"" around the edge of silver coins to prevent clipping. He built a new house at Park Wood, Burrough Green. The position"
"of Science and Technology before moving to take up a professorship at the University of London, where Graham founded the Chemical Society of London in 1841. In 1866, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His final position was the Master of the Mint, where he stayed from 1855 until his death. He was the last person to hold that position. He died in Gordon Square in London but his body was returned to Glasgow for burial in the family plot at Glasgow Cathedral. He did not marry and had no children. Thomas Graham"
"its downward descent, causing expensive damage. Milled coinage was thus abandoned in 1585 in favour of hammering. Eloy Mestrelle introduced milled coinage to England in 1561, but their production ceased in 1575. On 8 August 1649, the Council of State and the House of Commons opted to summon Peter Blondeau, a Paris Mint engineer, to London to modernise operations at the Tower Mint. Mint officials opposed Blondeau's techniques, and subjected him to a series of trials in which the quality of his product would be compared to that made by the Mint. According to a pamphlet published in Blondeau's name,"
"Richard Yeo, who succeeded to the post of Chief Engraver upon Tanner's death. Tanner designed a sixpence for the Royal Mint during the reign of King George II, the coin became popularly known as the ""tanner"" and this appellation preserved until decimalisation in 1971. In 1729, the Master of the Mint admitted, with some apprehension, that John Croker, Chief Engraver to the Mint since 1705, was then ""the only man now living who has hitherto made Puncheons for the Head on the Coin"" and recommended the appointment of an assistant in the shape of Tanner, then aged only 24. When"
"Smithson's remains until Congress approved a larger memorial. However, that never happened, and the remains of Smithson still lie there today. James Smithson James Smithson, MA, FRS (c. 1765 – 27 June 1829) was an English chemist and mineralogist. He published numerous scientific papers for the Royal Society during the late 1700s as well as assisted in the development of calamine, which would eventually be renamed after him as ""smithsonite"". He was the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, which also bears his name. Born in Paris, France as the illegitimate child of Hugh Percy, the 1st Duke of Northumberland,"
"William Chaloner William Chaloner (1650 – 22 March 1699) was a serial counterfeit coiner and confidence trickster, who was imprisoned in Newgate Prison several times and eventually proven guilty of high treason by Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Royal Mint. He was hanged on the gallows at Tyburn on 22 March 1699. Chaloner grew up in a poor family in Warwickshire, but through a career in counterfeiting and con artistry attained great wealth, including a house in Knightsbridge. He started by forging ""Birmingham Groats"", then moved on to Guineas, French Pistoles, crowns and half-crowns, Banknotes and lottery tickets. At"
"with the Royal Mint William Blakemore was the craftsman for the engraving of master dies for the Royal Mint London, and other Royal Mint branches, like the Royal Canadian Mint. He also engraved the designs for the first Australian coins of 1910. William Henry James Blakemore William Henry James Blakemore (1871, in West Midlands Birmingham, England – 1945) was an English engraver, and medallist at the Royal Mint London. Signature: WHJB William Blakemore was born 1871 in Warwickshire West Midlands Birmingham, England in June 1871. Ten years later he lived with his parents James Blakemore and Mary Ann in Buckingham"
"of the Rothschilds' banks, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank). John Robison (physicist) John Robison FRSE LLD (4 February 1739 – 30 January 1805) was a British physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of natural philosophy (the precursor of natural science) at the University of Edinburgh. A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society when it received its royal warrant, he was appointed as the first general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783–98). Robison invented the siren and also worked with James Watt on an early steam car. Following the French Revolution,"
"the Royal Society in 1912. George Thurland Prior George Thurland Prior FRS (16 December 1862 – 8 March 1936) was a British mineralogist. He made great contributions to mineralogical chemistry, petrology and meteoritics. He was born in Oxford, England, and attended Magdalen College there in 1881. He received a first class in the Honour School in Chemistry in 1885 and Physics in 1886. Later he went to study in Germany. He obtained his Doctor of Science degree from Oxford University in 1905. He entered the British Museum in 1887, where he was Keeper of Minerals from 1909 to 1927. He"
"William John Hocking William John Hocking (10 March 1864 – 10 April 1953) was a British numismatist. He worked at the Royal Mint from 1883 to 1926, beginning as a clerk and retiring as Superintendent of the Mint. Hocking was born at Sennen Cove, Cornwall into a Congregational church family. He went to London and secured a clerical post at the Royal Mint on 17 July 1883. In 1908 he travelled to Melbourne, Australia on supervise mint business there. In 1917 he was the Assistant Superintendent of the Operative Department. In due course he became the Superintendent of the Royal"
"part of his plea. Newton heard about this by accident three months later so arrested Peers for questioning and then recruited him as an agent. Peers rejoined Holloway in Egham and produced 18 forged shillings, enabling Newton to arrest Holloway for coining. An inventive coiner, Chaloner taught Thomas Holloway a new method of coining, using small, easily concealed stamps. By the 1690s Chaloner had become: In December 1692 (or 1694) Chaloner increased his ambition and targeted the Royal Mint. He issued pamphlets describing a ""solution""' to currency problems such as restrict/licence access to tools needed for coining; the coinage should"
"and suspects between June 1698 and Christmas 1699. He himself gathered much of the evidence he needed to successfully prosecute 28 coiners. One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. Chaloner's schemes included setting up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turning in the hapless conspirators whom he had entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament"
"Joseph knew that he had been appointed to the Royal Mint, as assistant to Hopton Haynes, Master's Assay Master. He and his younger brother Thomas, a tailor, had been sharing lodgings, but Thomas now wrote that Joseph was to move into the Mint on Lady Day 1735/6 (25 March 1736). The appointment was confirmed by Treasury warrant on 6 April 1737. Joseph occupied a house at the Royal Mint in the Tower of London until his death in 1764, though he did have a second home in what was then countryside and market gardens in the Grove Street area of"