CHAPTER XIX.
Boulton’s Application of the Steam-engine to Coining.
The manufacture of counterfeit money was very common at Birmingham about the middle of last century,—so common, indeed, that it had become an almost recognised branch of trade. The machinery which was capable of making a button with a device and letters stamped upon one side of a piece of metal, was capable, with a few modifications, of making a coin with a device and letters stamped upon both sides. It was as easy to counterfeit one kind of coin as another—gold and silver, as well as copper; the former only requiring a little extra skill in manipulation, to which the button-makers were found fully equal.
The profits of this illegal trade were of course very large; and so long as the coiners could find a vend for their productions, they went on producing. But at length the public, smarting from many losses, acquired sufficient experience to detect the spurious issues of the Birmingham mints; and when an unusually bright shilling or guinea was offered, they had little difficulty in pronouncing upon its “Brummagem”[314] origin. But though profitable, the prosecution of this branch of business was by no means unattended with risks. While some who pursued it on a large scale contrived to elevate themselves among the moneyed class, others, less fortunate, secured an elevation of a very different kind,—one of the grimmest sights of those days being the skeletons of convicted coiners dangling from gibbets on Handsworth Heath.[315]
The production of counterfeit gold and silver coins came to be avoided as too dangerous; but the production of counterfeit copper money continued active at Birmingham down to the middle of last century, when numerous illegal mints were found in active operation. A Royal proclamation was issued on the 12th July, 1751, warning the coiners against the consequences of their illegal proceedings; and shortly after, the Solicitor for the Mint went down to Birmingham, and had many of the more noted offenders tried, convicted, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The principal manufacturers and traders of the town met and passed strong resolutions, condemning the practice of illegal coining; but the evil still continued; and in 1753 it was estimated that not less than half the copper coin in circulation was counterfeit. This disgraceful state of the coinage suggested, and partly justified, companies, firms, and local bodies, in circulating copper coinages of their own. These were followed by provincial pence and halfpence, which were, in their turn, counterfeited by pieces of baser metal. Most of the new copper coins of all sorts, good and bad, were executed at Birmingham; and thus coining shortly became one of the leading branches of business there.
Boulton, as the owner of the largest and best-equipped manufactory in the neighbourhood, might have done any amount of coining that he desired; but the disreputable character of the business deterred him from entering upon it, and he refused all orders for counterfeit money, whether for home or abroad.[316] He took an active part in the measures adopted by the leading manufacturers to prevent illegal coining; and the interest which he felt in commercial questions generally continued to keep his attention directed to the subject. One of the greatest evils of debased coinage, in his opinion, consisted in the serious losses that it occasioned to the labouring people; many of the lower classes of traders and manufacturers buying counterfeit money from the coiners at half its current value, and paying it in wages at full value, thereby wronging and defrauding the workmen of their hire. He came to the conclusion that the public interest imperatively required that the whole of the so-called copper coinage in circulation should be swept away and superseded by the issue of new coins, the intrinsic value and superior workmanship of which should be so palpable as effectually to suppress counterfeiting and its numerous evils. He had many interviews with the ministers of state on the subject; and we find him alleging in one of his letters to a friend that “his principal reason for turning coiner was to gratify Mr. Pitt in his wishes to put an end to the counterfeiting of money.”[317]
Other circumstances, doubtless, concurred in keeping his attention directed to the subject. Thus, he had become largely interested in the copper-trade of Cornwall through the shares he held in the mines as well as in the Copper Mining Company; and he was himself a large holder of copper, which he had purchased from that Company at a time when they could not dispose of it elsewhere. It was also one of his favourite ideas to apply the power of the steam-engine to the stamping of money,—an idea of which he has the exclusive merit. As early as 1774, Watt says Boulton had many conversations with him on the subject; but it was not until the year 1786 that he successfully applied the engine for the first time in executing his contract with the East India Company for above a hundred tons of copper coin. James Watt, in his MS. memoir of his friend Boulton, gives the following account of the origin of his connexion with the coining business:—
“When the new coinage of gold took place in 178–, Mr. Boulton was employed to receive and exchange the old coin, which served to revive his ideas on the subject of coinage, which he had long considered to be capable of great improvement. Among other things, he conceived that the coin should all be struck in collars, to make it exactly round and of one size, which was by no means the case with the ordinary gold pieces; and that, if thus made, and of one thickness, the purity of the gold might be tested by passing it through a gauge or slit in a piece of steel made exactly to fit a properly made coin. He had accordingly a proof guinea made, with a raised border, and the letters en creux, somewhat similar to the penny pieces he afterwards coined for Government. This completely answered his intention, as any piece of baser metal which filled the gauge was found to be considerably lighter; or, if made to the proper weight, then it would not go through the gauge. Such money was also less liable to wear in the pocket than the common coin, where all the impression was prominent. The proposals on this head were not however approved by those who then had the management of His Majesty’s Mint, and there the matter rested for the time.
“In 1786 Mr. Boulton and I were in France, where we saw a very fine crown-piece executed by Mr. P. Droz in a new manner. It was coined in a collar split into six parts, which came together when the dies were brought in contact with the blank, and formed the edge and the inscription upon it. Mr. Droz had also made several improvements in the coining-press, and pretended to others in the art of multiplying the dies. As, to his mechanical abilities, Droz joined that of being a good die-sinker, Mr. Boulton contracted with him to come over to England at a high salary and work at Soho, Mr. B. having then the prospect of an extensive copper coinage for the East India Company as well as a probability of one from Government. In anticipation of this contract, a number of coining-presses were constructed, and a steam-engine was applied to work them.
“Mr. Droz was found to be of a very troublesome disposition. Several of his contrivances, being found not to answer, were obliged to be better contrived or totally changed by Mr. Boulton and his assistants. The split collar was found to be difficult of execution, and being subject to wear very soon when in use, it was consequently unfit for an extensive coinage. Other methods were therefore invented and applied by Mr. Boulton, and the use of Droz’s collar was entirely given up.”[318]