In 1601 and 1602 the requirements of the army in Ireland caused, for a time, the issue of copper pence, halfpence, and farthings, and this seems to have revived the idea of copper pledges for England, for which, indeed, pattern pieces were struck. Copper tokens were, at that time, issued by the cities of Oxford, Worcester, and Bristol.
On the accession of James I. that monarch issued silver pennies for this country, in which his Scottish baubees, bodles, and placks were useless. A pattern farthing was also prepared but not issued. Soon afterwards a fresh scheme, which met the approval of the king, was acted upon. This was the issue of Royal farthing tokens weighing only six grains each. The licence to mint these dishonest coins which, for the purpose of getting them into circulation, were sold by the Crown to all comers at 21 shillings’ worth for a pound, was granted to Lord Harrington—the king stipulating that he should receive one-half the profit every quarter of a year. His majesty, however, ere long altered the arrangement, allowing Lord Harrington a fixed sum, and himself taking all the rest of the profit. Their principal distributor was Gerard Malyns, who thus spoke of their intention and use:—“The necessitye of these small moneys did appeare here with us in England, where everie chandler, tapster, vintner, and others, made tokens of lead and brasse for half-pences, and at Bristol by the late Queenes authoritie were made of copper, with a ship on one side, and C.B. on the other side, signifying Civitas Bristoll: these went current, for small things, at Bristoll and ten miles about. Hereupon, it pleased our soveraigne lord the king to approve of the making of a competent quantitie of farthing tokens to abolish the said leaden tokens, made in derogation of the king’s prerogative royall, which farthing tokens, being in the yeare 1613, with certain cautions and limitations, made of meere copper, have on the one side two sceptres crossing under one diadem, in remembrance of the union betweene England and Scotland; and on the other side the harpe for Ireland, and the inscription, ‘IACOBVS D.G. MAGNÆ. BRITT. FRA. ET HIBER. REX.’ And the said farthing tokens have not oneley beene found very commodius and necessarie for pettie commutations, but also to be a great reliefe of the poore, and meanes to encrease charitie, without which many of them had perished, everie man having meanes to give almes, even the mechanicall poore to the indigent poore.”
The mode adopted for distributing these farthing tokens and getting them into circulation was crafty and business-like. They were made up in packets of 5s. 3d. worth in each, and these packets, made up in bags of £20 worth in each, were sent to the mayors of the different towns of the kingdom, who were required to sell them to the public. For all sold and remitted for within two months the mayor was allowed two shillings in the pound for his trouble; if over two months, then only one shilling; and the purchaser of course in any case got 21s. worth for 20s. Thus each 21s. worth was sold by the king for 18s.
Despite all this, however, and the issuing of proclamation after proclamation to enforce this Royal swindle, private tokens continued to be issued as much as ever and could not be put down. The office for the issue of the Royal tokens was in Lothbury, London, and the place is still known as “Token-House Yard.” After the annulling of this office, copper farthing tokens of a more honest value were issued, but traders still struck their own to such an extent that they became more than ever general throughout the country.
In 1649 an attempt was made to establish a national farthing, and pattern pieces were prepared. Nothing, however, was done until 1671, when Traders’ Tokens having increased to a prodigious extent, and being issued by one or other in almost every town and village in the kingdom, the government announced the intended issue of halfpence and farthings to supersede them; and in 1672 a proclamation prohibiting the making or use of any such private tokens was issued, and stringent measures taken for their suppression. From that time their use rapidly declined, and they were soon utterly put down.
From that time (1672) until 1787 no Traders’ Tokens whatever were struck or issued in this kingdom. In the latter year (1787) the government having for a long time neglected to issue a sufficient quantity of copper coins for the purposes of trade, and the copper coinage having been forged to so great an extent that not one-fourth of what was in circulation was of Royal mint coining, the Anglesey Copper Mines Company issued tokens of their own, and to such an extent that they put into circulation three hundred tons of copper pennies and halfpennies. The example thus set was followed by other companies, corporations, and private traders, and tokens soon became so general that the matter attracted the attention of government, and resulted in orders being issued for the preparation of a new national coinage.
To that end in June, 1797, George the Third issued his warrant empowering Matthew Boulton, of the Soho Works, Birmingham, to manufacture a considerable quantity of penny and twopenny pieces. The extent to which this contract was carried may be gathered from the fact that between June, 1797, and 1805, Matthew Boulton “coined under contract for the British Government upwards of 4,000 tons weight of copper coin, amounting at its nominal value to nearly £800,000.” These coins were strictly and unequivocally honest, as were also those of the Anglesey and other works.
The Soho twopenny pieces weighed exactly two ounces each, and eight of them laid side by side measured one foot; the pennies weighed one ounce each, and seventeen in like manner measured two feet; the halfpennies weighed half an ounce each, and twelve of them measured one foot.
The effect of this issue was the stoppage of private tokens, only one or two examples being known of so late a date as 1802, when they finally ceased.
By 1811, consequent on the great increase in the value of copper caused by the costly wars in which this country was engaged, the twopenny and penny pieces (which were of the intrinsic value of the metal) were melted down, or used in various ways, and thus the copper currency had again, gradually and surely, become deficient. In that year the Copper Companies and others again resorted to the issue of batches of tokens, and these continued to increase and to be issued in large numbers until 1817, when, by Act of Parliament passed on the 27th of July, their manufacture was prohibited, and their issuers ordered, under penalties for disobedience, to take up all they had issued before the 1st of January, 1818.