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THE COINAGES OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL B. LOWSLEY,
ROYAL ENGINEERS .
London: VICTORIA PRINTING WORKS, 118 STANSTEAD ROAD, FOREST HILL, AND 15 KIRKDALE, SYDENHAM.
PAGE
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON COINAGES FOR THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 1
THE EARLIEST COINS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 4
ROMAN COINS IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 7
ON EARLY IMPORTED COINS AND THEIR VALUES 9
THE COATS OF ARMS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 26
THE JERSEY SILVER TOKENS OF 1813 28
COPPER AND BRONZE COINAGES OF JERSEY FROM 1841 30
ON GUERNSEY COINS FROM THE MIDDLE AGES 33
COPPER AND BRONZE COINAGES OF GUERNSEY FROM 1830 37
SILVER COUNTERMARKED GUERNSEY CROWN 38
CHANNEL ISLANDS COPPER TOKENS 39
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 40
The Coinages of the Channel Islands.
BY LIEUTENANT-COLONEL B. LOWSLEY, Royal Engineers.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON COINAGES FOR THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
Before treating of the Channel Islands coinages in detail, it may be of interest briefly to notice in order the various changes and the influences which led to these.
The earliest inhabitants of the islands of whom anything is known were contemporaneous with the ancient Britons of Druidical times. Jersey and Guernsey are still rich in Druidical remains. The Table-stone of the Cromlech at Gorey is 160 feet superficial, and the weight, as I have made it, after careful calculation, is about 23-3/4 tons. It rests on six upright stones, weighing, on an average, one ton each. In the very complete work recently edited by E. Toulmin Nicolle is the following interesting note:--
All evidences that can be gathered would tend to prove that before the time of the Romans the Channel Islands were but thinly populated. There are no traces of decayed large towns nor records of pirate strongholds, and the conclusion is that the inhabitants were fishermen, and some living by hunting and crude tillage. The frequent Druidical remains show the religion which obtained. Any coins in use in those days would be Gaulish, of the types then circulated amongst the mainland tribes above named.
The writer of the foregoing notes considers that the earliest history of the Channel Islands is as follows :--
"1. At first the occupants were Bretons--few in number--pagan, and probably poor fishermen.
"2. Under the Romans a slight infusion of either Roman or Legionary blood may have taken place--more in Alderney than in Jersey--more in Jersey than in Sark.
"3. When the Litus Saxonicum was established, there may have been thereon lighthouses for the honest sailor, or small piratical holdings for the corsair, as the case might be. There were, however, no emporia or places either rich through the arts of peace, or formidable for the mechanism of war.
"4. When the Irish Church, under the school of St. Columbanus, was in its full missionary vigour, Irish missionaries preached the Gospel to the islanders, and amongst the missionaries and the islanders there may have been a few Saxons of the Litus.
"5. In the sixth century some portion of that mixture of Saxons, Danes, Chattuarii, Leti, Goths, Bretons, and Romanized Gauls, whom the Frank kings drove to the coasts, may have betaken themselves to the islands opposite.
"To summarise--the elements of the population nearest the Channel Islands were:-- original Keltic; Roman; Legionary; Saxon; Gothic; Letic; Frank; Vandal--all earlier than the time of Rollo, and most of them German; to which we may add, as a possible element, the Alans of Brittany.
"That the soldiers of the Roman garrison were not necessarily Roman is suggested by the word "Legionary." Some of them are particularly stated to have been foreign. There is indeed special mention of the troop of cavalry from Dalmatia--"Equites Dalmatae."
The inference from the above, as regards coins current in the Channel Islands prior to the Norman conquest of England, would clearly be that, subsequent to the circulation of the first uninscribed Gaulish coins as imitated from the Phillippus types, there followed the well-struck Roman issues, which, in course of time, were superseded by the coinages used and introduced by later invaders and settlers.
"Freluques" and "enseignes" also perhaps appear to have been struck in Guernsey, and a few copper tokens, as will be described, were introduced by banks and firms. But from the time of the Romans until the present century, French and other foreign money has been imported, and formed the recognized currency.
THE EARLIEST COINS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS
As referred to in the preceding general notes, the earliest coins known to have been in use in the Channel Islands are of the same types as used at the time on the near coast of France. They are styled Gaulish, and are generally of the following description:--
As regards the metal of which the coins are made, Sir John Evans, at page 128 of his work, states as follows:--
A. B.
"The weight of the larger pieces ranges from 80 to 105 grains, and that of the smaller coins is about 25 grains."
It will be observed from the above analysis how considerably the proportions of the white metals, as silver and tin, vary in these coins, and this variation, as regards metallic composition, is so universal that amongst a large number in the same "find" you will even, on cleaning the coins, see some of them look as if made of silver, and the colour vary, until you reach some that appear hardly better than wholly of copper. It would be very interesting to know where the metal or ore for these coinages was procured from. There must have been a natural mixture of most of the metals.
I have looked through a "find" of more than 200 Jersey Gaulish coins, which are in the possession of R. R. Lempri?re, Esq. They were turned up by the plough on his manor of Rozel; and whatever covering had enclosed them had either gone to decay, or become broken up, as they were quite loose. He had cleaned a few of them. Even to the eye the metallic composition varied greatly--some being of the colour of silver, and some lowering to that of copper. In this lot there were but two of the smaller size of 25 grains, and I think that proportion may perhaps give some indication as to the relative rarity of the two coins; for at a rough estimate one seems to meet only about one in a hundred, which is of the smaller kind. The larger Gaulish coins are common; large "finds" of the types formerly used in the Channel Islands having been made on the adjacent mainland of Normandy and Brittany, and also on the south coast of England.
They are often turned up in agricultural work, and many farmers possess a few, but will not part with them, nor with their stone or bronze spear-heads, arrow-heads, axe-heads, and jars, as there is often some superstition that it is unlucky to let these be sold away from the neighbourhood where they were dug up.
ROMAN COINS IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS
After conquest and occupation by the Romans, the Gaulish currency, as well as that of ancient Britain, was superseded by Roman issues. Mr. Edward Hawkins, in his standard work on the Silver Coins of England , tersely and precisely explains what happened in England; and the Channel Islands came within the same provisions and action.
"It is natural to suppose that when the Roman power had become established in Britain, the ordinary money of that empire would form the general circulation of this country, and that British money would be for the most part, if not entirely, superseded. Gildas asserts that an edict was actually issued and enforced, ordaining that all money current in this island should bear the image and superscription of the Roman Emperor; and the circumstance of Roman coins being almost daily turned up in every part of the country amply confirms his statement. It is quite unnecessary to enter here into any description of that money, as it is perfectly well known to everyone, and numerous treatises and descriptions of it have been published in all languages."
Just as stated above, it would be but going over ground already thoroughly well trodden to treat of the different Roman coins discovered in the Channel islands. They are similar to those which have come to light on the south coast of England and in Normandy and Brittany. I will, however, append at length the following note from William Nicolle, Esq., Jurat, of Bosville, King's Cliff, Jersey, who has favoured me with particulars of Roman coins found in Jersey, and now in his possession:--
This jar is in my possession.
"Mr. Lukis then proceeds to describe at length the different varieties of coins in this find under the respective emperors, though his details are not always correct.
"Of the 342 brass coins in my possession 208 are coins of Constantine the Great, or his son, 86 of Licinius, 16 of Maximinus, 14 of Maxentius, 11 of Maximianus, and 7 of Constantius Chlorus.
"It is probable that all, or almost all, the 342 coins of this collection were minted during the first quarter of the 4th century--in fact, during the ten years between A.D. 305 and 315."
ON EARLY IMPORTED COINS AND THEIR VALUES.
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