Numismatic history of Scotland

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Letter to the editor: Coin and country
Robert M Dunn, Published Date: 17 November 2010

Having just bought a copy of Neil Oliver's A History of Scotland I was shocked, and indeed annoyed, that he (and other recent authors of Scotland's history) has chosen to ignore a Scottish institution that had, until 1707, a continuous 600 years of activity.

I refer to that much ignored entity, the Scottish Mint, which produced such coins as Bawbees, Bodles, ECUs, Pistoles and Ryals, among many others.

On the Ordance Survey Plan NT2673NW - County of the City of Edinburgh, off South Gray's Close, near its junction to the Cowgate, appers an entry "Mint of Scotland AD 1574 - site of".

Why is there no plaque to commemorate this surely important building in Scotland's history?

In the National Museum of Scotland you will readily find reproductions of ancient Roman coins but a singular lack of old Scottish coins.

Who, if anyone, in authority cares enough to remedy this total neglect of an important facet of Scotland's glorious history?

Source: The Scotsman

[Ukrainii Pyat]

Ah come on, the Anglish think that Scottish history began in 1707 - therefore surely 'tis true?

Rather, for a look at Scotland's innovative and fascinating coinage prior to the subjugation lookies here:

http://www.scottishmoney.net/coins/coins.html

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I'll second those complaints!  Members of Yahoogroups can see some of my Scottish items at the site discussed here:

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,4914.0.html

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When I was last at the National Archives, I read some records entitled "Proposal for Royal Mint for Scotland", covering the years 1955 to 1958. I think this is a good place to discuss it. I didn't follow it all, but here's my best summary.

In the 1950s the Royal Mint planned to build a one million pound extension to its premises in London. The St Andrew Society (SAC), which I'd never heard of before, asked that the money should be used to build a Scottish mint instead, in addition to the London one. The Royal Mint (RM) said that London was ideally placed for its customers, with banks and the docks nearby, and there was no need for a Scottish mint. SAC countered that the Scottish banks were also customers, and that the Coinage Act of 1870 was invalid: England had no right to produce Scottish Coin of the Realm, and Scotland was guaranteed the continuance of the Scottish Mint (SM) so long as an English mint continued to operate. Scotland was therefore only demanding her rights!

The RM said that the SM had fallen into disuse due to the voluntary inactivity of its officers, who were paid as sinecurists for 110 years. (For non-English speakers, a sinecure is a well-paid job that involves little or no work, and often comes with a title!). Furthermore, there was no "Scottish coin of the realm", as the Coinage Act applied to the UK, not to England or to Scotland. The RM had no surplus orders that needed to be minted in Scotland, and it would be difficult to find properly qualified technical staff in Scotland, therefore the RM was right to spend its money on an extension to the London site.

SAC referred to Clause 16 of the Treaty of Union: "A Mint shall be continued in Scotland under the same rules as the Mint in England". The RM replied that the Scottish Mint was abolished in 1817, and that the 1870 Coinage Act stated that the Governor of the Mint in Scotland was the same person as the Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e. the BRITISH finance minister).

There were further details, but they related to the Coinage Act and did not seem to be significant. One of the RM staff writing the reports said that, though he was very fond of the Scots and partly Scottish himself, he was confident that, if SAC challenged the RM, the law and the Coinage Act would support the actions of the RM.

I have no knowledge of the content of the 1870 Coinage Act, other than the details given in these reports. Whether this tale from the 1950s is of interest to any of our members, I don't know.

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This page may provide some leads for further research. One of the external links refers to a book available on Google books.

The approach of the SAC is a bit naive. If you approach policy wonks with a law book in hand, they dig in quickly and cannot be budged. Remember that any legal procedure is your cost and risk if you lose and taxpayer's cost and money if they lose. The wonks are always unaffected. Rather, SAC should have argued that a mint in Scotland would have saved transportation cost...

Meanwhile, it has become quite obvious that in a country the size of the UK, a second mint is not necessary, not only because of the examples of Rome and Paris (one mint for the whole country) as well as Denver (found unnecessary to service the centra part of the US,) but also because Llantrissant has shown that a mint that is geographically ex-centric is no problem, ergo transportation cost are not dominant. The window of opportunity for a Scottish mint has closed.

Peter