"Victoria" on PBS had a very numismatic themed show on Sunday!

291fifth

"Victoria" on PBS, Season 3, Episode 6, had a great deal of information about the development of the florin coin and the "Godless" florin. Can anyone comment on the accuracy of the show on this issue? Truth, fiction or something in-between?

bigmarty58

The Story of the Florin

Britain's First Decimal Coin
The silver florin was Britain's first decimal coin. A gold florin was first issued during the reign of Edward III in 1344 at a value of six shillings. The name derives from Italian, either fiorino (little flower) or Firenze (Florence), and was inspired by a similar continental coin.
After the influence of the French Revolution, there grew a European movement towards decimalization. During the early part of Victoria's reign, the decimal question became an important social and political subject. In 1824 Lord Wrottesley's proposal for decimal currency was rejected by Parliament, and there were other reports and commissions in 1853, 1857, and 1918. Many trial pattern pieces were produced, and there was much debate about what new denominations should be introduced. Eventually, it was decided that a new coin, the florin could be easily introduced. It fitted easily into the existing monetary system, being worth two shillings (2/-), or one tenth of a pound.

Godless and Graceless
A proof pattern florin was struck in limited numbers in 1848, and this design was accepted. It was produced in quantity for general circulation the next year 1849, but was unpopular at first.
It seems to be human nature to resist change, new coins and money in particular are always criticized when they first appear. I suppose most people prefer to be familiar with the money in their pockets. The wording "DEI GRATIA" or its abbreviation "D.G." had been omitted from the design. The translation from Latin means "by the grace of God", and the new coin was criticized heavily for being "Godless and graceless", and is still know to this day as the "Godless" florin.

Gothic Revival
A new design had to be introduced, and in 1852 the beautiful "gothic" design, similar to that on the crown of 1847, was introduced into circulation, and it continued in production, with a few minor changes, until Victoria's golden jubilee year, 1887.
The furore over the "godless" design almost sunk the florin, the new gothic design rescued and revived its chances of success.
The florin itself continued until 1967, after which a "10 new pence" coin was issued, identical in size and weight to the old florin or two shilling piece. In this way, the florin did indeed help to pave the way for Britain's decimalization, although it did take 122 years!

Exbrit

Nice explaination.

Swampboy

Hah!
(Cool thread)
I love how Victoria pitched a fit over the omission of D.G. in that episode.
The fault got pinned on Albert and Uncle Leopold suggested the name Florin in the script.

WinLoseWin

@291fifth said:
"Victoria" on PBS, Season 3, Episode 6, had a great deal of information about the development of the florin coin and the "Godless" florin. Can anyone comment on the accuracy of the show on this issue? Truth, fiction or something in-between?

Was wondering the same thing as I am watching this series.

Having coins with her image on them but never really looking into her history, I found the story interesting. Though the show can drag on a bit.

In reading about some of the actual history (on the infallible Wikipedia), I noticed the series sometimes jumps around on timelines and mixes things up to fit what they wanted.

It seems this happened with part of the coin story line as it is about the new 1849 florin denomination and the show starts after Victoria has her seventh child which would be in 1850. Also it shows the design idea of adding a crown on the Queen to be a new idea for the 1849 florin when it had already been used on the 1847 Gothic Crown.

Also, was Prince Albert really the one behind designing the coin with out the phrase "Dei Gratia" leading to it being referred to as the Godless Florin? Some experts here can likely answer if that was the case.

The episode is still viewable at this PBS link until 3-3-2019.

https://pbs.org/video/a-coburg-quartet-o2busy/

The coin related scenes appear around the 3:00, 16:00 and 42:00 times.

Sapyx

As far as we can tell from current records, Prince Albert had nothing to do with the "Godless florin" design - it was purely William Wyon's work. Wyon had designed the Gothic Crown as well as a bunch of medals and colonial and foreign coins, And as far as we can tell, he simply submitted designs, which were ratified with little concern for what did or didn't appear in the legend; it seems to have been a case of people assuming "Wyon knows what he's doing".

We do know that afterwards, Queen Victoria herself took an interest in the appearance of the coinage - perhaps as a result of the hullabaloo over the Godless florin. The coinage reforms and redesigns of 1860, in particular, were closely monitored by her.