Last week, the Royal Mint unveiled a new set of designs for British coins. They depart dramatically from tradition by featuring themes from nature rather than heraldic, royal, or national emblems. The last set of definitives, designed by Matthew Dent and released in 2008, featured enlarged details of the royal arms, and previous designs have featured emblems of the nations of the UK such as the lion, dragon, thistle, leek and flax plant – as well as the familiar designs introduced at decimalisation.
Few of the wild animals are readily identifiable with a single nation or region of the UK
The new coins include a dormouse (1p), a red squirrel (2p), oak leaves (5p), a capercaillie (10p), a puffin (20p), a salmon (50p), bees (£1) and combined national plants of the UK (£2). The designs quickly drew comparison with the coinage of the Irish Free State, which were chosen in 1926 by a committee chaired by W. B. Yeats and featured Irish animals in an ‘Art Deco Celtic’ style, such as a woodcock, pig, hen, hare, wolfhound, bull, salmon, and horse. Whether the designs of the UK’s new definitives were in any way influenced by these Irish coins is unclear, but the 2023 designs are less stylised than their Irish counterparts and the emphasis is on realistic portrayals of the animals chosen rather than stylised representations. Furthermore, it seems unlikely there is any direct connection between the two sets of designs because the Irish coins mixed wild and domesticated animals, and featured no plants.
The most noticeable departure from tradition in the new definitives is that few of the wild animals are readily identifiable with a single nation or region of the UK, with the exception of the capercaillie and salmon – species associated with the Highlands of Scotland, which the King loves a great deal. People from Wales and Northern Ireland might be surprised to see a national emblem of England – the oak leaf – on the 5p coin but no animals or plants readily identifiable with their own nations; red squirrels, puffins and bees can be found in all four nations, and dormice in England and Wales. But perhaps this is the point; except on the £2 coin, where the traditional national plants appear, the animals are not intended to represent nations or regions of the UK. Nature is no respecter of national boundaries, and the island of Great Britain shares an ecosystem (which is similar to Ireland’s). Several of the coins also feature rare and endangered animals, such as the dormouse and red squirrel. Some of the most charismatic wild animals of the British countryside, such as foxes, badgers and deer are absent.
The message of the new definitives is one we have come to expect from Charles III: an emphasis on nature, on ecology, on conservation, and more than one nod to his beloved Scottish Highlands. It is a message that came across strongly in the design for the Coronation invitations, wreathed with wildflowers and featuring a ‘Green Man’, and in the inclusion of a tree in the design for the anointing screen. But there is also, perhaps, a subtler message about the importance of the Union encoded in a set of coins that largely eschews national symbols for an ecological theme. The message might be that nature unites us all, as dwellers on two temperate North Atlantic islands where nature, for many people, is a dwindling presence. To some, no doubt, the designs will seem out of touch. When was the last time you saw any one of these animals in the wild in modern Britain? But weighty symbols like the designs of the coinage of the realm do not exist to be relevant. It is refreshing, perhaps, to have coins that clearly reflect the King’s personal tastes and interests, and these definitives undeniably have personality – even if, in our increasingly cashless society, it may be some time before you see one in your change.
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