Humphrey Paget, Coin Designer

[Galapagos]

Humphrey Paget.

Here is a piece I have transcribed from a 1990 Royal Mint bulletin. Most people throw these away once they've ordered their coins, so I hope the Royal Mint doesn't mind me reproducing this.

One of the best remembered designs of the last pre-decimal coins was the old sailing ship on the halfpenny. Based on Drake’s Golden Hind, it was the work of one of the most prolific designers of the twentieth century.

Thomas Humphrey Paget was born in London in 1893 to a family already well established in the art world. Little wonder then that the young Paget should have been interested in art and that he should have studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won a Landseer Scholarship. Following naval service during the First World War, he returned to the Central School as a visiting teacher, and it was around this time that he first came to the notice of the Royal Mint.

Among the most energetic of the original members of the newly formed Royal Mint Advisory Committee was Professor Derwent Wood of the Royal College of Art; and it was Derwent wood who, in 1923, included Paget’s name in a list of young artists asked to submit designs for a medal to be awarded to nurses at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. This he did with great success, producing in the process the first in a long and distinguished series of medallic portraits.

However, it was through one of his small private commissions, rather than his early work for the Mint, that Paget made his reputation. In 1935 he was aksed to design a medal for the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, and for the obverse he produced a fine portrait of the Prince of Wales, who was Master of the Company. This portrait was widely admired, and the Deputy Master of the Mint considered it so successful that he asked Paget to prepare a low relief version as a possible coin effigy. Soon afterwards the Prince became King Edward VIII and it was indeed a model by Paget that was eventually approved for use on coins and medals of the new King.

The abdication in December 1936, however, meant that most of this work had to be scrapped, and the urgency of the situation was such that Paget alone was commissioned to prepare the uncrowned effigy required for coins and medals of George VI. If there were doubts about this course of action, Paget dispelled them brilliantly, for in little more than a month he produced what Michael Rizzello has described as the classic coinage head of the twentieth century.

Simple, unaffected, well balanced, it was as near perfect from a technical point of view as the Mint could have hoped for. More than any other design, it may be said to typify Paget’s work and is almost certainly the design that he himself regarded as his best. His reputation was assured.

Paget’s most productive period followed the Second World War: his many commissions included seals for the Central African Federation, the South Arabian Currency Authority and the National Coal Board; medals for the Victoria Numismatic Society, the Society of Chemical Industry and the Royal Society of Medicine; coins for Bolivia, the British Caribbean Territories, Burma, the Central African Federation, Iraq, the Isle of Man, Jordan, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Arabia, Southern Rhodesia, Uruguay and Western Samoa. Particular mention deserves to be made of his head of Feisal II for the Iraq coinage, for which the schoolboy King gave sittings at Harrow, and of the reverse design for the Southern Rhodesia crown of 1953, which incorporated so many diverse elements in a space of only one and a half inches that it must be considered a numismatic triumph. Another that should be counted among his best must be a medallic portrait of the Duke of Edinburgh, his last major commission.

Undoubtedly Thomas Humphrey Paget ranks as one of the most prolific and outstanding members of the Royal Mint’s panel of artists during the first half of the twentieth century. Few can have been so technically successful and so totally reliable as he, and it is with pleasure that we pay tribute to this large, shy, kindly man who, for the greater part of fifty years, served the Mint so well.

 

[Galapagos]

Paget’s work is easily recognised by the initials H.P., which are to be found on most of his coin and medal designs.

The Southern Rhodesia Crown of 1953 is one of Paget’s finest overseas coin designs. It commemorates the centenary of the birth of Cecil Rhodes.

[Figleaf]

A whole series of excellent portraits and the Golden Hind (I am not too fond of the Rhodes design, but the portrait is fine). I like that Paget got the sails on the Golden Hind right. One thing that struck me is that on the patterns, Edward VIII and George VI look practically like twins...

Peter

[Galapagos]

Paget’s first successful design for the Royal Mint was his uncrowned portrait of King George VI.

 

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Here are Paget's reverse designs for the Nigeria 1959 set. The other designs for the set were created by Paul Vincze.



Above: Six 6 pence. Cocoa beans.

Below: 1 shilling.  Palm branches.

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Here are Paget's designs for Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The other designs for the set were created by Bernard Sindall and Paul Vincze.




Two shillings.




Half crown.
 
 

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Here are Paget's designs for the reverses of the coins of the British Caribbean Territories.




The Golden Hind appears on the 5, 10 and 25 cent coins.




The 1 and 2 cents feature a pair of sprigs.




The 50 cents shows a stylised Queen Elizabeth II with symbolic seahorses.

 

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And here is his design for the South Arabia 50 fils.


See also: The Yemen People's Democratic Republic.

 

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Here is Paget's magnificent portrait of King Faisal II of Iraq, as it appears on the 100 fils coin of 1955.

See also: Iraq: Three Kings on Coins.
 
 

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Here is another design from Humphrey Paget. Once again, you can see his initials, H.P. The obverse of this 10 centesimos piece from Uruguay, dated 1960, depicts José Artigas (1764-1850), who is regarded as the father of Uruguayan independence.

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Here is another Paget design I found, again distinguishable by his initials: a Dominican Republic 1963 half peso.

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See also: Defence Medal Trial Design Depicts Big Ben.

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In 1965 the Isle of Man issued a set of gold coins to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Revestment Act, when Mann became a dependency of the British Crown. You can see from the initials HP on the obverse that this effigy of Queen Elizabeth II was another design by Humphrey Paget. Mr Paget had also created the classic uncrowned effigy of King George VI that adorned the coins the UK and the Dominions during his reign.

 

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Humphrey Paget designed the obverse and reverse of the Irish 10 shilling coin that was issued in 1966 to commemorate Pádraig (Patrick Pearse), who led the Easter Rising in 1916. The reverse depicts Cúchulainn, an Irish mythological hero from ancient Gaelic literature. The figure of Cú Chulainn is a miniature of the statue by Oliver Sheppard, currently in the General Post Office, Dublin.

 

[Figleaf]

This coin is one of my all-time favourites. There is the rimless, shallow bowl shape to admire, but also the sparse but powerful symbolism. Pearse also died standing up against stone (in Kilmainham Gaol.) Looking back in this thread, I think this is easily Paget's best coin design.

Peter