Double florin
The double florin, or four-shilling piece, was a British coin produced by the Royal Mint between 1887 and 1890. One of the shortest-lived of all British coin denominations, it was struck in only four years. Its obverse, designed by Joseph Boehm and engraved by Leonard Charles Wyon, depicts Queen Victoria, whilst the reverse, featuring national symbols of the United Kingdom, was designed by Wyon based on the coinage of Charles II.
The double florin was introduced as part of a coinage redesign that took place in 1887, the year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. One purpose of the redesign was to replace portraits of the queen which had changed little since her youth, and which no longer resembled the monarch, who was nearing her seventieth birthday. Mint officials and politicians also sought to reduce dependence on the half sovereign, a gold coin worth ten shillings which was expensive to strike, by issuing the double florin and reintroducing the crown coin. They may also have intended a further decimalisation of the coinage after the introduction of the florin in 1849.
When issued in June 1887, the Jubilee coinage provoked an outcry. The small royal crown Boehm had placed on Victoria's head caused widespread mockery. The double florin in particular was criticised as it was close in size to the five-shilling crown, leading to confusion, especially since neither coin was inscribed with its denomination. The confusion was said to be particularly acute in public houses, where barmaids accepted it believing it to be a crown, giving it the nickname of "Barmaid's Ruin" or "Barmaid's Grief". Minting of the coin ceased after 1890, though it remained in circulation. Upon full decimalisation in 1971, the double florin was not demonetised, and remains legal tender for 20p.
Background
During the 19th century, Britain continued its longtime monetary system, under which 12 pence constituted a shilling, and 20 shillings a pound. There was interest in decimalisation of this system, and in 1849, the florin, equal to two shillings or one tenth of a pound, was issued as a first step. It was intended to replace the half crown, worth two shillings and sixpence, and production of the half crown was discontinued in 1850, but resumed in 1874, and both coins were struck until full decimalisation in the 1970s. The crown, or five-shilling piece, was not struck for circulation between 1847 and 1887; the 1847 coinage was struck in limited numbers and possibly intended as keepsakes. When a double florin was proposed by a director of the Bank of England in 1874, the Deputy Master of the Royal Mint, Charles William Fremantle, opposed it.The next largest coin in denomination was the gold half sovereign, equal to ten shillings. This was a small coin, equal in size to the silver sixpence. The government discouraged the use of half sovereigns—unlike silver coins, the sovereign and half sovereign were to contain their full value in precious metal, to an exacting standard set by the Coinage Act 1870. These limits were so tight that 45 per cent of newly-struck half sovereigns were rejected by the automatic scales at the Royal Mint, requiring their recoinage. The government profited through seignorage on silver coins at about 20 per cent, depending on the price of silver. Thus, the half sovereign was expensive in terms of both the value of its metal and its production costs, especially in comparison with the silver coinage. Such problems were less acute with the sovereign, for which demand continued high as a world-wide trade coin, whereas the half sovereign tended to remain in Britain. In 1884, the Gladstone government proposed to reduce the amount of gold in the half sovereign by a tenth, rendering it a token coin, but the change was abandoned. British gold coins were legal tender for payments in any amount, but silver coins were only legal tender to forty shillings.
Inception
In September 1886, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Randolph Churchill, replied sympathetically to a proposal in the House of Commons to abolish the half sovereign and replace it with silver coins. Although Churchill was noncommittal, his son and biographer Winston wrote that he "harboured a deadly design against the half-sovereign—'that profligate little coin'—which he believed was an expensive and unnecessary feature of British currency". Lord Randolph came to favour withdrawal of the half sovereign, with its place taken by large silver coins, and the redemption of outstanding half sovereigns to be paid for in part with silver coins and in part with £1 bank notes, with some portion to be replaced with sovereigns. Since this would mean the largest denomination coin with which change could be given from a pound would be the half crown, James Currie, governor of the Bank of England, suggested a double florin to aid in change giving. Before these matters could be decided, Lord Randolph resigned as chancellor in late December 1886. His successor, George Goschen, was slow to decide whether to discontinue the half sovereign, and eventually decided against it. Nevertheless, Goschen was no supporter of the half sovereign, and none were struck at the Royal Mint's facility at Tower Hill between June 1887 and February 1890.Among those pressing for the issuance of large silver coins were the supporters of bimetallism, making both gold and silver legal tender. A four-shilling piece had been common in proposals for a fully bimetallic coinage since at least 1868. Increasing the amount of silver used for coinage would be a step towards bimetallism. The issue of bimetallism was especially acute in Britain in the mid-1880s because of the problems in British India, where the government received revenue in silver but then had to make payments to Britain in gold, at a time when the value of silver relative to gold was decreasing. Increased seignorage from large silver coins might allow Britain to grant India financial relief.
No document has been found that clearly explains the decision to issue a double florin. The numismatist G. P. Dyer, in his article on the influences that brought about the double florin, wrote:
Sir John Clapham, in his 1944 history of the Bank of England, described the double florin as "a half-hearted concession to admirers of the decimal system". Issuance of the double florin was also justified in the hope that, as a large silver "dollar"-sized coin, it would compete with the Mexican "dollar" as a trade coin in the Far East, and Fremantle was encouraged when £1,000 of the new coins were distributed to a bank connected with the Eastern trade in 1887. Nevertheless, the intrinsic value of the double florin was about sixpence less than the Mexican coin, and less than five per cent of double florins were sent abroad.
Design
Obverse
By 1887, Queen Victoria had been on the throne for half a century, and was nearly 70 years old. Nevertheless, the coins of the United Kingdom still depicted her as a young woman, as they had since the first issuance of coins depicting her in 1838. Her Golden Jubilee in 1887 gave an opportunity to place new designs on the coinage, and all the circulation coins but the bronze pieces saw a new portrait of her that year.In 1879, Joseph Boehm had been chosen, apparently by Queen Victoria herself, to execute a portrait of the queen that could be used as a model for coinage designs. Boehm prepared a likeness that was used for a medal marking the queen's Jubilee, and which was adapted for the coinage in lower relief by Leonard Charles Wyon, who made small changes.
The obverse of the Jubilee coinage, first issued in 1887, including the double florin, features that likeness. It quickly became controversial, although it was a portrait from life, as the queen had sat for Boehm. The obverse of the 1887 coins, according to the numismatic author, Howard Linecar, "produced a storm of disapproval, directed particularly against the effigy of the queen. How this obverse design was passed by the queen herself is a small mystery." In their article on Boehm's role in the Jubilee coinage, Dyer and Mark Stocker agree: "even though the queen's artistic judgment was admittedly a hit and miss affair, it still seems curious that neither she nor those most closely involved had any inkling of the likely public response". The historian Sir Charles Oman deemed the Jubilee coinage, "the greatest disappointment of the century."
Victoria wears a small crown, which she had bought so as not to have to wear a heavier one. It was the crown that she preferred to wear at that time, and appears on other contemporary effigies of her. According to Linecar, "Place your finger over the crown, and there is nothing odd about the portrait: it is just that of a widowed lady in mourning. The disapprobation therefore turns upon the ridiculously small crown ... When she saw herself as others saw her, did she, as many of us do, suddenly become aware that she was wearing a 'hat' that did not suit her?"
Simon Heffer, in his history of Britain in the decades before the First World War, stated that the engraving on the Jubilee coinage was "honest and lifelike", but that Victoria "looked sour, chinless and porcine, her over-sized head made all the more glaring by a crown several sizes too small being perched upon it, above a bizarre flowing head-dress". The art critic George Moore stated of the Jubilee coinage, "the melting-pot will put that right one of these days". The numismatist Lawrence W. Cobb, writing in 1985, took a more nuanced view of the portrait, "Wyon seems to have tried to soften the Queen's look of age, tension and strain , but in so doing he lost some of the strength and vigor of the Queen's indomitable spirit. Nonetheless, even with its faults, Wyon's portrait preserves the majesty of the Queen's presence."
In addition to bearing the crown, Victoria's head has a widow's veil. Following the death of Albert, Prince Consort in 1861, she had remained in mourning, and the veil would have been black in colour. The veil descends from a widow's cap worn under the crown. The queen has a pearl necklace and there is an earring in her visible ear. She wears the Ribbon and Star of the Order of the Garter and the badge of the Order of the Crown of India; the artist's initials may be found on the truncation of her bust.