page_title: Royal Mint
section_title: 1914 to 1966
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Mint / 1914 to 1966
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of an engraving room at the Royal Mint circa 1934. Reproduced from a glass negative held by the Royal Mint Museum. Image shows a Janvier reducing machine in the center and craftsman Alfred Patrick Tims (born 17th March 1874) on the right.
context_page_description: The Royal Mint is a government-owned mint that produces coins for the United Kingdom. Operating under the name Royal Mint Ltd, the mint is a limited company that is wholly owned by Her Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclusive contract to supply all the nation's coinage. As well as minting circulating coins for use domestically and internationally, the mint also produces planchets, commemorative coins, various types of medals and precious metal bullion. The mint exports to an average of 60 countries a year, making up 70% of its total sales. Formed over 1,100 years ago, the mint was historically part of a series of mints that became centralised to produce coins for the Kingdom of England, all of Great Britain and eventually most of the British Empire. The original London mint from which the Royal Mint is the successor was established in 886 AD and operated within the Tower of London for approximately 800 years before moving to what is now called Royal Mint Court where it remained until the 1960s. As Britain followed the rest of the world in decimalising its currency, the Mint moved from London to a new 38 acres plant in Llantrisant, Glamorgan, Wales, where it has remained since.
context_section_description: In 1914, as war broke out in Europe, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George instructed that gold coins be removed from circulation so as to help pay for the war effort. The government started to issue £1 and 10 shilling Treasury notes as replacements, paving the way for Britain leaving the gold standard in 1931.
  From 1928, the Irish Free State (later Republic of Ireland) issued its own coins. These were produced by the Royal Mint until Ireland established its own Currency Centre in Dublin in 1978.
  During World War II the Mint played an important role in ensuring that people were paid for their services with hard currency rather than banknotes. Under Operation Bernhard, the Nazis planned to collapse the British economy by flooding the country with forged notes, leading the Bank of England to stop issuing banknotes of £10 and above. To meet these demands the Mint doubled its output, so that by 1943 it was minting around 700 million coins a year despite the constant threat of being bombed. The Deputy Master of the Mint John Craig recognised the dangers to the Mint, and introduced a number of measures to ensure the Mint could continue to operate in the event of a disaster. Craig added emergency water supplies, reinforced the Mint's basement to act as an air-raid shelter and even accepted employment of women for the first time. For most of the war the mint managed to escape most of the destruction of the Blitz, but in December 1940 three members of staff were killed in an air raid. Around the same time an auxiliary mint was set up at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, which had been requisitioned for the war effort. Staff and machinery from Tower Hill were moved to the site , which started production in June 1941 and operated for the duration of the war. Over the course of the war the Royal Mint was hit on several occasions, and at one point was put out of commission for three weeks. As technology changed with the introduction of electricity and demand continuing to grow, the process of rebuilding continued so that by the 1960s little of the original mint remained, apart from Smirke's 1809 building and its gatehouses at the front.
caption: Engraving room at the Royal Mint in 1934
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