The "Illegal" 50p and the Death of "NEW PENCE"

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In February 1971 Britain went decimal. The pound sterling was now equal to a hundred new pence, and to distinguish decimal pence from their pre-decimal counterparts, the word 'NEW' appeared on the reverse of every decimal coin. However, that word was not originally meant to appear on the coins at all, and it was not removed until 1982, long after it had become redundant. Why was it used in the first place, and why was it retained for so long?

By 1960, many former British colonies had replaced their version of the pound sterling with their own national decimal currency, and Australia and New Zealand were also planning to decimalise. Britain's adherence to pounds, shillings and pence was now looking decidedly old-fashioned. In 1961 the Conservative government set up a parliamentary committee to decide how best to proceed to decimalisation. Meanwhile, the Royal Mint organised a closed competition in which established artists were invited to provide designs for a decimal coinage. Christopher Ironside won that competition, producing dozens of plasters and sketches of proposed designs in the process, some of which were also minted as trial pieces. These generally showed the year that they were produced, and the legends on those designs dated 1962 to 1964 include the words 'DECIMAL PENNY' or 'DECIMAL PENCE'.



UK decimal trial set dated 1963.

From Royal Mint Museum web page "The UK coins that never were":
http://www.royalmint.com/discover/decimalisation/unseen-ironside-designs

(Images copyright Royal Mint Museum.)

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In October 1964 a Labour government replaced the former Conservative government, and James Callaghan became Chancellor of the Exchequer. On March 1 1966, he announced that Britain planned to adopt a decimal currency in the near future. Additionally, a public competition would be held to find suitable designs for the new coinage. A dismayed Christopher Ironside went back to the drawing board, determined to win, and his new designs were indeed ultimately chosen.

The Labour government now decided that the legend 'NEW PENCE' would appear on the decimal coinage, instead of the 'DECIMAL PENCE' favoured by the Conservative government. Prince Philip, the President of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee, particularly disliked the use of the word 'NEW', and queried its use. In a letter to Prince Philip, Mr Callaghan wrote, "'Decimal penny' was considered as a name for the minor unit but gave way to 'new penny', which we thought sounded more vigorous. We accepted that 'new penny' would seem strange on a coin in some fifty years' time, but we finally decided on the name in the expectation that once the change-over and transition period are over, the word 'new' will drop out of use."  Presumably by 'vigorous', Mr Callaghan meant short and snappy.

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The public was introduced to the term when coins bearing the legends '5 NEW PENCE' and '10 NEW PENCE' were issued in 1968, and '50 NEW PENCE' duly followed in 1969. With exact equivalents of one, two and ten shillings respectively, they co-circulated with the pre-decimal coinage of the day. On February 15 1971 Britain went decimal, and the decimal half penny, penny and two pence coins were released. These also bore the word 'NEW' in their legends. The decimalisation process ran very smoothly, and the public soon stopped referring to 'new' pence. The legal basis of the decimal currency was the Coinage Act 1971, which gave the Queen the power to regulate the coinage by royal proclamation, meaning that certain changes, such as a new design or denomination, did not require parliamentary approval.

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In 1973 the UK issued a circulating 50p coin that commemorated Britain's entry into the European Economic Community.  The denominational legend read simply '50 PENCE', yet all the standard circulation coins still included 'NEW' in the legend. The matter was clearly under consideration, because Royal Mint documents show that in January 1974 Bernard Madden, Assistant Head of Design of the Royal Mint, asked Christopher Ironside to produce sketches of the coinage without the word 'NEW'.  Even these apparently minor changes were closely scrutinised by the Royal Mint Advisory Committee, which sometimes required further amendments. Once satisfactory initial designs had been produced, Anthony Dowling, a director of the Royal Mint, wrote to the Treasury in August 1975 that:  "Since the expression 'new pence' is nowadays rarely used, the change in the coinage is sensible if not overdue. Against all this, there is no evidence of any public demand for change." The Treasury agreed and replied that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, would make a submission to the Queen.

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In October 1975, Treasury Minister Denzil Davies wrote to Conservative M.P. Geoffrey Finsberg, who had asked about the possibility of removing 'NEW' from the coins:  "Royal Mint and Treasury officials agree that it would be appropriate to omit the word 'new' from the coinage, and the Deputy Master intends to make a submission to Ministers suggesting that the change night be made in 1977 to coincide with the Silver Jubilee. There are certain precedents for timing changes in coinage design to coincide with Royal occasions, but they are not strong and need not stand in the way of a change in 1976 if Ministers preferred it. However, even if a decision were taken now, coins of the new design would not be in quantity production before next spring. The change would be authorised by Royal Proclamation under the Coinage Act of 1969. No other legislative action would be needed."

On January 5 1976, Mr Healey wrote to the Queen, advising her that, "The change could be made without upsetting the balance of the designs as a whole by expressing the denominational values in words as well as figures", and on February 2 1976 the Treasury learned that the Queen had approved the submission. The Treasury regarded the matter as a simple design change that could be authorised by Royal Proclamation under Section 3b of the Coinage Act 1971, namely that "Her Majesty may from time to time, by proclamation made with the advice of Her Privy Council, determine the design of any coin."

However, on May 6 1976, Treasury Solicitor Gerald Hosker informed Treasury staff: "I am very doubtful whether the omission of 'new' could be regarded as simply a change in the design of the coin. It is rather a change in the description of the unit of value on the coin." As regards the 1973 EEC 50p, he added," There was no query raised from any source at the time, no doubt because the 50p piece clearly had a new design, but it may well be that to retain the design and merely change the name of the stated currency unit would provoke comment. It also gives rise to the situation whereby the statutory provision for the currency, section 1 of the Decimal Currency Act 1967 still relates to 'new pence', whereas the coins themselves would not be consistent with that position."

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The debate rumbled on, and on 9 December 1976 John Rankin Christie, the Deputy Master of the Mint, wrote to Mr Hosker that: "The change should proceed as planned and legislation should be regarded as necessary only in the event of a serious challenge to the validity of the change. The new coins would be only the latest in a long succession which have not borne the denominational value precisely as it is expressed in the Schedules of the Coinage Acts under which they were issued. This succession extends far back into the history of the coinage and includes, among current coins, all gold coins, post-decimalisation Maundy coins, and certain crowns and florins. It seems to support the proposition that whatever appears on coins is part of the design  and that they possess their denominational value not by virtue of what is inscribed on them but by their being of the weight and composition as specified in the relevant Coinage Acts and bearing designs authorised by Royal Proclamation. 50p coins omitting the word 'NEW' have been in circulation since 1973 and never been challenged."

Ironically, Mr Hosker had briefly queried the legality of the EEC 50p's legend before it was issued, but he was ignored, and he later jocularly referred to it as the "illegal 50p" in a memo to the Mint. Now, however, he replied to Mr Christie that: "The EEC 1973 fifty new pence is probably legal tender even though there is no reference to 'new' in the stated value on it. Counsel came to this conclusion because the omission occurred in the course of other radical changes in the design of the reverse side of the coin and the terms of the proclamation seem to support this proposition. A wholesale change in the stated values of coins which involves the omission of 'new', but no other significant changes in the design, carries a high risk of being outside the scope of the powers exercisable by Her Majesty by proclamation under section 3(b) of the Coinage Act 1971. It seems to follow that if the designs of the present 10 new pence and lower value coins were to be changed over the years, 'new' could be dropped in the course of the redesign, but to undertake the redesign of all the relevant coins at one time might be regarded by the Court as an attempt to amend section 1(1) of the Decimal Currency Act 1969 without legislation." Mr Hosker's suggestion that the piecemeal removal of 'NEW' from the coinage might get around the law seems both illogical and absurd.

Mr Hosker added that an individual could go to the courts and obtain a declaration that the coins were not legal tender, and the Mint would then be unable to issue any further coins until the Parliament rectified the situation. On December 23 1976 Minister of State for the Treasury, Denzil Davies, therefore recommended that the change be postponed until section 3b of the Decimal Currency Act of 1971 could be expanded to state: "Determine the design of any coin and the manner in which the denominational value is expressed".

The government had decided that the risk was too great. Nor was there any public demand for a change. It is unlikely that anybody would have challenged the change in the courts, but had the amended coins indeed been declared illegal, the government would have been highly embarrassed and the Opposition would have had a field day. Pernickety individuals might have caused queues as they checked their change for "illegal" coins. However, while the coinage theoretically requires a legal basis, the Bank of England's banknotes, by contrast, are legal tender only in England and Wales. Moreover, Scottish banknotes are not legal tender in Scotland, nor are Northern Irish banknotes in Northern Ireland, yet nobody in those countries refuses to use banknotes. Money is an economic necessity, and anybody refusing to use it would likely soon starve. Accordingly, when the state for any reason cannot provide money, unofficial tokens soon step into the breach and are accepted by the public.

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Parliamentary time is always precious, and it was not until February 2 1982 that the subsequent Conservative government passed the Currency Act 1982: An Act to replace section 1(1) of the Decimal Currency Act 1967 so as to sanction references to the new penny as the penny. Its main provision was: The denominations of money in the currency of the United Kingdom shall be the pound sterling and the penny or new penny, being one hundredth part of a pound sterling. This meant that the 20 pence coin, introduced on June 9 1982, could dispense with the word 'NEW'.

The UK was the last to make the change: the Isle of Man dropped 'NEW' from its coinage in 1976, followed by Guernsey in 1977 and Jersey in 1981. The Falkland Islands had introduced decimal coinage in 1974, but the denominations were given in numerals only, without a 'p' or 'PENCE', so there was no 'NEW' to be dropped. The coinages of Gibraltar and St Helena-Ascension were not introduced until 1984 and 1988 respectively and 'NEW' was never included in their legends. Ireland's decimal coins simply used 'p' as an abbreviation for 'pence', in contrast to the 'd' and 's' (for pence and shillings) on predecimal coins, but nonetheless Ireland's Statutory Instrument No. 387 of 1985 legislated 'new pence' out of existence: "The 2nd day of December 1985, is hereby appointed as the day on and after which, pursuant to section 2 (3) of the Decimal currency Act, 1969 (No. 23 of 1969), the new penny shall be known as the penny."

The coins of 1982 accordingly appeared without NEW in the legend but with an extra denomination, the 20p. There were other changes: the position of Britannia's trident on the 50p would have played havoc with the updated legend, so Mr Ironside had modelled a completely new Britannia: her figure, posture, attire, trident, shield and olive wreath were all significantly amended. The face, ear, paws and fur of the lion were also subtly different.  The legend's font was slightly amended, but the denominational numerals now appeared in a noticeably different font. The crowned thistle on the 5p was moved lower to avoid hitting the "P" in "PENCE, while its leaves, stalk and flower were also significantly amended, as was the crown itself. Apart from coin collectors, few among the public noticed these radical changes in the designs of the 5p and 50p.

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Britain's decimal revolution proceeded in stages. Three decimal coins were introduced prior to full decimalisation in 1971, and three predecimal coins – the six pence, shilling and florin - were retained afterwards, being demonetised in 1980, 1990 and 1992 respectively. The decimal half penny was demonetised in December 1984, and the reduction in size of the 5p, 10p and 50p coins, in 1990, 1992 and 1997 respectively, entailed the demonetisation of their predecessors. Only 1p and 2p coins minted prior to 1982 now still carry the word 'NEW'.  Bizarrely, the oldest coins in circulation proclaim themselves as 'NEW', whilst newer coins do not. Gibraltar and the Isle of Man have excluded 1p and 2p coins from their newest circulation series, and their demonetisation in the UK and its related territories is surely imminent. Only then will these lingering vestiges of the first chapter of decimalisation disappear from our coinage.

The word 'new' is relative, and eventually 'new' pence were no longer new.  Even if the UK had named them 'decimal pence', sooner or later even 'decimal' would have been deemed superfluous. The authors of the original decimal currency acts were remiss in not legislating for the eventual redundancy of 'NEW'. Their lack of clarity and foresight ultimately caused much wasted effort and a delay of five years in making the required change. Knowledge of the law and its correct interpretation are also important: the idea that omitting 'NEW' from the EEC 50p was a legitimate design matter but illegal with regard to the standard coinage was clearly illogical. In itself, the change was of no practical or economic value; only logic required it. But however trivial the matter, our politicians should be commended for adhering to the law as they understood it. The change was of course welcomed by coin collectors, while the thought that the EEC 50p was technically illegal will no doubt amuse that half of the population who are Brexiteers.

This article first appeared in the February 2018 edition of Coin News (UK). As holder of the copyright, I am entitled to republish it here.

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Christopher Ironside's ideas for the 50p.

The trident's position was altered to accommodate the amended legend.

Sketches by Christopher Ironside are from The National Archives (TNA), Royal Mint document MINT 33/JK/Z: "UK coinage: deletion of word 'new' ". 

This information is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3).

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A fifty pence coin without the "NEW".

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As a former bureaucrat, I enjoyed that. Thank you for posting it here. A nice view inside a rumbling bureaucratic machine.

I am greatly amused by the thought that decimalisation was inspired by (former) colonies going the way of the dollar. When it comes to coinage, Britain had looked decidedly old-fashioned in the eyes of its neighbours long before its (former) colonies decided to do away with their pre-1815 coinage system. The train of thought does help understand Brexit, though

Peter

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I've changed the title of this topic in the hope that it will attract more views. It's an important story. I had often wondered why the Royal Mint did not get rid of the legend "NEW PENCE" until 1982 - fully 11 years after decimalisation.

In December 2016, the Royal Mint documents that told the story were released. The anomaly of the 1973 50p was explained, along with other aspects. I would never have guessed there would be so much to this story. Whatever you think of it, it is an important part of the story of decimalisation.

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Few people enjoy bureaucratic wrangling, unless it's packaged as humour - see the success of "yes (prime) minister".

To spur the discussion, I think both parties are wrong, but Gerald Hosker was obnoxious, rather than completely dead wrong all the way. People giving legal advice to government and corporations should not concentrate on what is impossible, but on how it can be done anyway. By coming up with improbable scenarios, like someone deciding to spend the money he doesn't need anyway on a stupid legal cause absolutely nobody cares about, he made himself ridiculous, so he was rightfully ignored.

The politicos were wrong trying with all their might to deny parliament to have a say in the matter. What great harm would it have done if the coins had dropped the word NEW a year later because it had been delayed by parliamentary procedure? The Treasury might even have sent a letter to the appropriate parliamentary sub-committee saying something like: "Hey guys, we are thinking of dropping the NEW from the coins because the penny isn't new any more. We think we can do this alone, but if you insist, we'll come over to yours and tell you all about it" and play it by ear from there. I think the parliamentary reaction would have been a massive collective yawn.

Guesswork, but maybe Hosker had turned himself into such a pest, the politicos became determined to show him wrong at every turn. Childish, but it happens all the time.

Peter

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Hosker was a solicitor, so he had to be aware of the legal aspects. I don't see him as pompous. Shares were priced in new pence in prospectuses. It was a live and important issue at the legal level. Hosker also showed humour by referring to the "illegal 50p". As for the chance of politicians being more open about the matter and potentially giving the Opposition a chance to embarrass the government - well, I'm sure you know better than that. Politicians are notorious Macchiavellians.

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Interestingly, this related document shows that the reverse design for the decimal halfpenny was originally intended for a half-crown-sized 20 pence coin.

I know that one of the 20 pence trials of the early 1960s was the size of a double florin, i.e. 36 mm in diameter. Just how many 20 pence variations were produced in the 1960s, I wonder, before the idea was dropped?