Cartwheel penny

The history of the penny of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from 1714 to 1901, the period in which the House of Hanover reigned, saw its transformation from a little-used small silver coin to the bronze piece recognisable to modern-day Britons, by 1901 struck in the tens of millions each year. All bear the portrait of the monarch on the obverse; copper and bronze pennies have a depiction of Britannia on the reverse.

During most of the 18th century, the penny was a small silver coin rarely seen in circulation, and that was principally struck to be used for Maundy money or other royal charity. Beginning in 1787, the chronic shortage of good money resulted in the wide circulation of private tokens, including large coppers valued at one penny. In 1797 industrialist Matthew Boulton gained a contract to produce official pennies at his Soho Mint in Birmingham; he struck millions of pennies over the next decade. After that, it was not until 1825 that pennies were struck again for circulation, and the copper penny continued to be issued until 1860.

By the late 1850s, the state of the copper coinage was deemed unsatisfactory, with quantities of worn oversized pieces, some dating from Boulton's day, still circulating. They were replaced by lighter bronze coins beginning in 1860; the "Bun penny", named for the hairstyle of Queen Victoria on it, was issued from then until 1894. The final years of Victoria's reign saw the "Veiled head" or "Old head" pennies, which were coined from 1895 until her death in 1901.

At the start of King George I's reign in 1714, the penny had been struck from silver for about a thousand years. The Hanoverian dynasty in Britain began during the time that Sir Isaac Newton was Master of the Mint. Newton had in 1702 considered the issuance of a copper penny, but no action was taken. Silver at this time came to the Royal Mint only as the by-product of mining for other substances, and from chance deposits and windfalls—the scandal-plagued South Sea Company in 1723 was obliged to send a large quantity of silver bullion to the Mint's premises in the Tower of London. Nevertheless, so little was sent overall that MP John Conduitt, Newton's successor as Master, wrote in 1730 that since December 1701, "no silver has been imported to the Mint but what was forced thither". Only small quantities of silver pennies were struck in the early years of George's reign; it and the silver twopence were unpopular in any case because of their small size.

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