Money Mondays: Commemorative Coinage

Beau the Hippo has become the emblem of the Beau Street Hoard, and we’ve learnt how a Hippo ended up on a Roman coin from an early blog post by Susan which you can read here.

A  Hippo was just one of a number of animals depicted on coins by Philip I in 248AD to commemorate 1000 years since the founding of Rome. These animals were brought to Rome to be part of a series of games held for the anniversary in arenas, such as the Coliseum, around Rome. Other coins from the anniversary show the legend associated with the founding of Rome, of twins Romulus and Remus being nursed to health by a She-Wolf.

Taking this concept of coins commemorating specific events or occasions I decided to investigate what other coins there might be in the Roman Baths collection that are commemorative or celebrating key events for my Money Mondays display.

What I discovered while going through the collections database was a whole range of coins and medals that had been used to commemorate events, anniversaries or people.

As the Royal Mint are the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, the coins of the UK, commemorative souvenirs have been a popular way of marking Royal events such as Jubilees for the last three centuries. My display included a whole range of Royal events, from a coin celebrating the birth of James II in 1633 right up to a very shiny five pound coin for Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, with a few coronations and deaths in between! Key moments in battles and important treaties can also be found on coins. Two examples I chose for display included the Treaty of Paris in 1814 and a striking medal of the Duke of Wellington for the Battle of Waterloo!

I even discovered some medals commemorating local events in Bath such as Queen Charlotte’s visit in 1817 which brought my research to the Records Office to read through some issues of the Bath Chronicle from the time.

The display generated a lot of interest on the night and I particularly enjoyed being able to display items from 248AD right up to 2012 which all connected! The variety of coins from different centuries and eras helped to contextualise the Beau Street Hoard coins in a new way too!

Holly Furlong, Leicester Placement Student