Today is a slight departure from our usual historic photo however we have two images of both sides of an unusually thick British twopenny coin that contained two ounces of pure copper and was minted in 1797, two hundred and twenty years ago. The hefty coins featured the profile of His Majesty King George III on the one side and of Britannia on the other, The Colony of New South Wales commenced in 1788 when the first convicts arrived with their military escort to establish a settlement in the Southern Land. It was Britain’s loss of the American colonies that forced them to think about New South Wales as an alternative penal colony.
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The British Government had already stated that basically no coinage would be required as it was to be a convict settlement however this was a very short-sighted decision made by typical public servants of the day. What coinage did arrive was principally in the pockets of the military and government officials.
It was not long before the Governors in New South Wales realised that if any type of economy was to exist coinage would be required. Governor Arthur Phillip was the first governor from his arrival on 26th January, 1788, to 10th December, 1792, and the Union Jack was raised and the colony proclaimed in the name of King George III of England. Phillip made a number of futile requests for specie pointing out that really the local administration was relying on promissory notes or IOUs for transactions. By 1790 Phillip had had enough and asked to be recalled to England as he was under great pressure and was exhausted.
Then Captain John Hunter served as commander of the colony from September 1795 to 27th September 1800 and he too was aware that for commerce to progress more currency would be needed to alleviate the situation.
The circumstances had allowed the illicit ‘rum trade’ to flourish whereby wages and other payments were made in rum and controlled by the New South Wales Corps. Ironically when Hunter departed Sydney Harbour after taking command of H.M.S. “Buffalo” on 28th September, 1800, bound for London that he would pass the sailing ship carrying the colony’s first official shipments of these large copper ‘cartwheel’ coins.
One of the greatest problems confronting the early governors of the Colony of New South Wales was retaining the coins within the colony as shipping traders required copper or silver coinage that they could spend elsewhere.
Very few Bathurstians would realise that the first ‘official’ issue of coinage to arrive in the colony of New South Wales would arrive in the same vessel as one of our early pioneers of New South Wales and Bathurst.
George and Sarah Suttor and their first child, George Banks Suttor, arrived in Port Jackson on 6th November, 1800.
They arrived on the H.M.S. Porpoise after a protracted sea journey of nearly two years under the Master of the vessel William Scott.
On board were fourteen passengers, including the Suttor Family, eight convicts and four tons of large thick copper pennies valued at £550, as well as provisions and stores for the impoverished colony.
The population of the colony at the time was about 5,000.
Mathew Boulton was responsible for striking these thick coins by steam power in his private Soho Mint and though considered cumbersome by some, was able to turn out fifty cartwheel pennies each minute.
These historical ‘cartwheel coins’ were to lead to the complete transformation of coinage production, not only in Britain, but also around the world. Boulton had teamed up with inventor James Watt to make coining machinery run by steam.
After Governor King arrived he too asked that more coins be shipped out to the Southern Colony.
Fortunately, before his term as Governor was over in August 1806 several more small shipments of copper and silver coins of the realm had arrived in wooden barrels on various sailing ships from England.
