Featured Article Summary #157

Coins made under William IV from 1830 to 1837 ranged from £2 double sovereigns to small colonial issues like the third farthing, though these smallest pieces were mainly for colonies. The main coin designs on both sides were created by William Wyon, using sketches by Francis Chantrey for the front and designs by Wyon and Jean Baptiste Merlen for the back, all made by the Royal Mint. Work on the new coinage started before William became king, likely because Wyon wanted to avoid competition from Benedetto Pistrucci. William approved Wyon’s designs in early 1831, and coining began later that year, with the same style also used for his coronation medal. During his reign, Britain also minted some small sterling coins for colonial use, and two of those later became available in Britain. Overall, there were no major new changes in coinage, but this period began reforms at the Royal Mint. William IV became king in June 1830 after his brother George IV died and was the oldest British monarch until Charles III in 2022. He had ten illegitimate children with actress Dorothea Jordan, but no surviving children with his wife Princess Adelaide, and he was succeeded by his niece Victoria after his death in 1837. William Wyon, born in 1795 in Birmingham, joined the Royal Mint as assistant to his cousin Thomas Wyon, the chief engraver, until Thomas died in 1817. A long dispute followed between Wyon and Benedetto Pistrucci over jobs at the Mint, while Jean Baptiste Merlen, a Flemish engraver from Paris, was hired as a temporary extra engraver but effectively worked as a second engraver until his retirement in 1844. Wyon started preparing William IV’s coinage in April 1830, even before George IV died, by obtaining a sketch of the king from sculptor Francis Chantrey while keeping it secret. After William became king, he could work openly from a bust supplied by Chantrey, and the king approved the portrait and instructed that no other likeness be used. By late 1830, it seemed little had been done publicly, but the delay was mainly due to engraving an accurate portrait in the coin style; the coinage was authorised in November 1830 and put into use in April 1831. Wyon’s use of a reducing machine also helped him produce matching designs across different coin sizes. Because William IV’s reign was short, only one set of coin designs was used. The front (obverse) on the gold and silver coins used the same inscription for all, while the reverse usually showed only “ANNO” and the date; some coins (like the shilling, sixpence, and fourpence) also uniquely wrote the denomination in words for the first time. Most reverse designs came from Merlen, while Wyon handled the copper designs, including a Britannia image that was largely kept from the George IV coinage with small changes to the halfpenny and farthing. Richard Sainthill praised William Wyon’s coin designs for George IV and William IV, saying they show a calm, natural likeness with excellent detail and smooth, lifelike engraving. People who saw the coins even recognized the king’s head as “the old boy himself.” In 1835, William Till noted that a Wyon penny showed the monarch plainly—just the king’s head based on a natural bust—an approach also used on William’s coronation medal.