Birmingham Mint
Encyclopedia
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...
, originally known as Heaton's Mint or Ralph Heaton & Sons, in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
started producing tokens
Token coin
In the study of numismatics, tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of tokens is part of exonumia. Tokens are used in place of coins and either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape...
and coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
s in 1850 as a private enterprise, separate from, but in cooperation with the Royal Mint
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK...
. Its factory was situated in Icknield Street , on the edge of the Jewellery Quarter
Jewellery Quarter
The Jewellery Quarter is an area of Birmingham City Centre, England, situated in the south of the Hockley area. It is covered by the Ladywood district. There is a population of around 3,000 people in a area....
. It was created by Ralph Heaton II, using second-hand coin presses bought from the estate of Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
.
Ralph Heaton II
Ralph Heaton II (1794-October 1862) was the son of Ralph Heaton I, an engineer, inventor and businessman in Slaney Street, and later Shadwell Street. Ralph Heaton II was a die sinker operating in Shadwell Street independently of his father. On 2 December 1817 Ralph I conveyed to his son land and buildings at 71 Bath Street to enable him to develop a separate company. Ralph II engaged in brass founding, stamping and piercing. Brass chandeliers were made for the newly invented gas lightingGas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...
and a "bats wing" burner patented.
Mint
On 1 April 1850 the auction was announced of equipment from the defunct Soho MintSoho Mint
Soho Mint was created by Matthew Boulton in 1788 in his Soho Manufactory in Handsworth, West Midlands, England. A mint was erected at the manufactory containing eight machines, driven by steam engine, each capable of striking 70 to 84 coins per minute....
, created by Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
around 1788. At the auction on 29 April Ralph Heaton II bought the four steam-powered screw presses and six planchet
Planchet
A planchet is a round metal disk that is ready to be struck as a coin. An older word for planchet is flan. They are also referred to as blanks.-History:The preparation of the flan or planchet has varied over the years...
presses for making blanks from strip metal. These were installed at the Bath Street works, and in that year trade tokens were struck for use in Australia. In 1851 coins were struck for Chile using the letter H as a mintmark. The same year copper planchets were made for the Royal Mint to make into pennies, halfpennies, farthings, half-farthings and quarter-farthings. In 1852 the Mint won a contract to produce a new series of coins for France. In this the Mint pioneered the minting of bronze. Ralph Heaton III (son of Ralph II) took key workers to Marseilles to equip and operate the French mint there, staying to fulfil the contract, and producing 750 tons of Napoleon III bronze coins from 1853-7.
In 1853 the Royal Mint was overwhelmed with producing silver and gold coins. The Birmingham Mint won its first contract to strike finished coins for Britain – 500 tons of copper, struck between August 1853 and August 1855, with another contract to follow in 1856. These coins had no mint mark to identify them as from Birmingham. During the peak of operation the four original Boulton screw presses were striking about 110,000 coins per day.
As overseas orders increased, particularly for India, the Mint added a new lever press and further equipment, filling the Bath Street premises. In 1860 the firm bought a 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) plot on Icknield Street (the current site, since enlarged) and constructed a three storey red brick factory. Completed in 1862 it employed 300 staff. It was at this time the largest private mint in the world. In 1861 a contract for bronze coins for the newly unified Italy was signed, the Mint sending blanks and equipment to Milan to be struck into finished coins by their staff in Milan.
Ralph Heaton III
On the death of Ralph II in 1862, Ralph III (1827-10 November 1891) took over the running of Ralph Heaton & Sons. He added eleven lever presses, made on site, retiring the last of Boulton's screw presses in 1882. In addition to the production of coins and blanks the firm manufactured metal parts for ammunition, gas fittings, medals, ornaments, plumbing fittings, rolled and strip metal, tube and wire.In 1871 the first order for silver coinage was for Canada, and in 1874 the first gold was struck - Burgersponds for the new South African Republic
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
– 837 pieces.
Following parliamentary approval in 1881 to upgrade the Royal Mint, the firm provided ten lever presses and a cutting-out press, effectively depriving itself of coining contracts from the Royal Mint for some time.
Shortly before his death, Ralph III converted the family business into a public limited liability company, passing control on 22 March 1889 to the new company named The Mint, Birmingham, Limited. The agreement paid £110,000 to Heaton with £10,000 worth of copper. In addition £2,000 annual rent for the Mint property would be paid, and his son, Ralph IV would be general manager, his other sons Gerald and Walter would have senior positions, and he, Ralph III, would remain as a director. He died two years later.
Ralph Heaton IV
Almost immediately his son, Ralph IV, was elected Managing Director by the board. Between 1896 and 1898 the Mint struck all of Russia's copper coins (over 110,000,000 coins per year).During the First World War the Mint produced strip brass and copper tubing for munitions.
Orders for colonial coins, blanks and bar metal were a steady source of business until, in 1912, an order for 16.8 million bronze coins for Britain, and in 1918 and 1919, further orders for 7.1 million pence saw the mint striking coins for the home market. British penny coins minted by Heaton and dated 1912 can be identified by a very small upper case letter 'H' appearing alongside the date: many of these coins were removed from circulation by collectors during or before the decade preceding February 1971
Decimal Day
Decimal Day was the day the United Kingdom and Ireland decimalised their currencies.-Old system:Under the old currency of pounds, shillings and pence, the pound was made up of 240 pence , with 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a...
. However, also in 1912, the Mint saw its first competition as the Kings Norton Metal Company was also contracted to supply bronze blanks to the Royal Mint, and in 1914 struck coins for the colonies. Kings Norton became part of Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...
(ICI) in 1926 and was reorganised as part of Imperial Metal Industries Limited (IMI) in 1962.
Ralph IV retired in 1920. His successor was his brother in law, W. E. Bromet. Heaton's son Ralph V joined the firm in 1922 on the commercial part of the business, eventually rising to the position of company secretary.
Depression
In 1923 the almost monopoly position of the Mint as supplier to foreign (non-empire) countries was lost as the Royal Mint was given permission to supply to the world market, although the Mint continued to supply the Royal Mint. During The DepressionGreat Depression in the United Kingdom
The Great Depression in the United Kingdom, also known as the Great Slump, was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global Great Depression...
profits were minute and after shareholder revolt the Mint was taken out of the hands of the Heaton family in May 1935. From this time the production of coins became a small part of the overall business of non-ferrous metal sheet and tube production. Coinage accounted for 10-20% of the business from 1940-64. World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
again demanded quantities of brass sheet and copper tube for ammunition and aluminium-brass cylinder linings for Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce Limited
Rolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....
aeroplane engines. Bomb damage and the effects of continuous production for the war left the factory run-down. It was unable to supply new minting machinery to the Royal Mint in 1948, but did provide the necessary drawings.
Maria Theresa thaler
In 1949 the Mint produced an edition of the Maria Theresa thalerMaria Theresa thaler
The Maria Theresa thaler is a silver bullion-coin that has been used in world trade continuously. Maria Theresa Thalers were first minted in 1741, using the then Reichsthaler standard of 9 thalers to the Vienna mark. In 1750 the thaler was debased to 10 thalers to the Vienna Mark...
, a silver "trade dollar
Trade dollar
-United States:The United States trade dollar is a silver dollar coin that was issued by the United States Mint and minted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Carson City, and San Francisco from 1873 to 1885. Trade dollars intended for circulation were last produced in 1878 while proof coin production...
" widely used in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and previously minted by the Vienna Mint, or later, the Rome Mint. Further mintings were in 1953, 1954 and 1955.
1950s
By 1953, coins accounted for only 5% of the business. A major product was copper tubing and fittings for the building industry, supplied under the MBL trade mark. Medals, slot machine tokens and gambling tokens were produced.1960s onwards
In 1965 a consortium of the Mint, the Royal Mint and IMI achieved a growth in the export market. The Mint expanded to an adjacent site in 1967 but a reduction in orders from the Royal mint immediately followed, apart from a large order for 1680 tons of bronze half-pence blanks and 466 tons of cupro-nickel 10 pence blanks were supplied to the Royal Mint for the decimalization coins in 1968-71.Business reorganisations saw the sale in 1975 of the copper pipe business and a reinvestment in new coining machinery with continuous casting techniques.
In addition to manufacturing coins, the Birmingham Mint also produced proof medals and tokens for vending machines. They also produced and named Long Service & Good Conduct medals for West Midlands Fire Service
West Midlands Fire Service
West Midlands Fire Service is the statutory fire and rescue service responsible for fire protection, prevention, intervention and emergency rescue in the county of the West Midlands in England....
.
Decline
In later years, the plant became increasingly busy with the introduction of the EuroEuro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
within the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
; the mint produced several million €1 and €2 coins. However, a slump in trade and contractual agreements between them and the Royal Mint
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK...
resulted in the sale of the mint in late 2003. The Mint was acquired by JFT Law & Co Limited who still produce and sell commemorative coin
Commemorative coin
Commemorative coins are coins that were issued to commemorate some particular event or issue. Most world commemorative coins were issued from the 1960s onward, although there are numerous examples of commemorative coins of earlier date. Such coins have a distinct design with reference to the...
s and medals from a website. Substantial parts of the plant and machinery were subsequently purchased by an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n company, Lord's Security Mint Limited. The Pobjoy Mint
Pobjoy Mint
The Pobjoy Mint is Europe’s leading private mint which produces legal tender commemorative and circulating coins, medals and tokens for governments, central banks and major companies throughout the world from its premises in Surrey, England.-History:...
purchased the newest high speed presses plus new tooling.
Most of the complex, excluding the Icknield Street block and the rear, retaining, wall, was demolished in April 2007. The façade is grade II listed.
Redevelopment
After being purchased by George Wimpey, planning consent was given for a large mixed use residential and commercial scheme. However the project was deferred due to the downturn in the wider economic climate, and it was later sold on in January 2007 to Junared Property Group.Construction of scheme commenced in early 2007 with the intention to be complete by spring 2009. Unfortuately Junared Property Group ceased construction in December 2008 after funding was withdrawn by HBOS before lapsing into administration in February 2009.
In May 2010 the development of the site was revived by Rabone Developments, intending to produce a gated residential development.
External links
- The Birmingham Mint Website
- Junared Property Group - Redevelopment of the Mint
- A site on attractions in Birmingham
- British Coins - Free information about British coins. Includes an online forum.