Leonard Charles Wyon Modeller & Engraver to the Royal Mint, 1851–1891; Designer of Jersey Coinage

Phase	Date / Place	Event & Notes
Life & Training
Life	23 Nov 1826 Royal Mint, London	Born Leonard Charles Wyon in one of the houses within the Royal Mint, the eldest son of Chief Engraver William Wyon RA and his wife Catherine Sophia, née Keele. No child could have had a more complete numismatic inheritance: his father was already the greatest coin engraver in Britain, and the Wyon family had dominated British die-engraving for two generations. The Royal Mint was then located at Tower Hill in London. The Wyon family occupied residential quarters within the compound — Leonard was literally born into his life's work.
Life	1835–1843 London	Educated at Merchant Taylors' School, then in Charterhouse Square on the north-eastern edge of the City of London. His father taught him art alongside his formal schooling, and Leonard inherited great skill in die engraving. By the age of 16 he had already made several medals — some of his early work is displayed in the British Museum's numismatic collection. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1843. The piece he sent to the Royal Academy in 1843 was the remarkable struck medal described by Forrer: at sixteen, he reproduced the head of King Louis XVIII on one side and a copy of Thomas Simon's Cromwell Crown obverse on the other — described as "excessively rare."
Life	1844 Royal Mint	Appointed Second (Probationer) Engraver at the Mint at the age of 18, on the retirement of Jean-Baptiste Merlen. He also began studying at the Royal Academy Schools, consolidating both the practical and academic dimensions of his training. Merlen, a French-born engraver, had been employed at the Mint since the 1820s and worked alongside William Wyon on many colonial coinages.
Life	1851 Royal Mint	On the death of his father William Wyon in October 1851, Leonard does not succeed to the title of Chief Engraver — that post was abolished on William's death as part of a reorganisation at the Mint. Instead, a new salaried position of Modeller and Engraver to the Royal Mint was created for him. He also inherited his father's dies for a wide range of institutional medals and took over the production of punches for the Goldsmiths' Company. The abolition of the "Chief Engraver" title was a deliberate administrative change; Leonard's role was functionally identical to his father's, but the dynastic title ended with William. Leonard was also appointed Engraver to the Goldsmiths' Company — a prestigious private commission he held alongside his Mint work.
Life	20 Aug 1891 London	Dies at his London home, aged 64. Buried at Paddington Old Cemetery. His death ends the Wyon family's unbroken association with the Royal Mint that had spanned three generations and over seventy years. Some of his designs and dies continued to be used by the Mint as late as 1901. By the 1881 census, Leonard was living at 54 Hamilton Terrace, Marylebone — described as "Modeller and Engraver To Her Majesty's Mint and Engraver to the Goldsmiths' Company" — with his wife Mary, three daughters, a son, and five servants.
Jersey Coinage — L. C. Wyon's Designs
Jersey	Context: The 13-Pence System	When Leonard Wyon came to design Jersey's coinage, the island still used a unique monetary system in which there were 13 pence to the shilling — a survival of an older Norman reckoning quite distinct from the English standard of 12 pence. Jersey denominations in the early bronze era were therefore expressed as fractions of a shilling: 1/13, 1/26, and 1/52. These had to be redesigned when the island's coinage was standardised to align with English weights and measures. The 13-pence system was a local custom rooted in the island's Norman heritage. Coins of the "13 pence to the shilling" era are sometimes called "pre-reform" Jersey coins, and their denominations (1/13 shilling = 1 penny, 1/26 = halfpenny, 1/52 = farthing) are unfamiliar to collectors used to the later standard series.
Jersey	1/13 Shilling (= 1 penny) Victoria, 1866, 1870, 1871	Obverse: diademed bust of Queen Victoria to left, signed with Wyon's initials. Reverse: the Jersey heater-shaped shield of arms (three lions passant on red), denomination below, STATES OF JERSEY above. This is the first Jersey bronze coinage designed entirely by Leonard Charles Wyon, and the only series on which his initials appear. Wyon's initials appear on the 1866, 1870, and 1871 coins only. H. K. Fears distinguishes three die pairs for the 1866 issue. Mintage per year: 173,333 (corrected from Krause's erroneous 160,000, which used the English 12-pence-to-the-shilling divisor instead of the correct 13). Source: Pridmore, Marshall-Fraser, and McCammon.
Jersey	1/26 Shilling (= ½ penny) Victoria, 1866, 1870, 1871	Half-penny denomination in the 13-pence system. Same Wyon obverse portrait; smaller heater shield reverse. The same die-pair series and die varieties apply as for the 1/13 shilling, and Wyon's initials likewise appear on coins of these years only.
Jersey	The 1877 Reform & Standardisation to 12 Pence to the Shilling	In 1877 the States of Jersey standardised the island's coinage to align with the English system of 12 pence to the shilling. All remaining coins of the 13-pence series were called in and reminted into pieces denominated as 1/48, 1/24, and 1/12 of a shilling. This reform also standardised the diameter and weight — twelve Jersey pennies (1/12 shilling) henceforth equalling twelve English pennies in size and weight. Wyon's 1866 portrait was retained but had to be slightly enlarged to fit the new larger diameter. Although the new dies were engraved at the Royal Mint, the actual striking was carried out in Birmingham by Heaton and Company (Government Minters). The enlargement of the portrait for the 1877 coins is a key die-variety distinction for collectors. Wyon's initials do not appear on the 1877 and later Victoria issues, despite the portrait being his design — a point worth noting for attribution purposes.
Jersey	1/12 Shilling (= 1 penny) Victoria, 1877, 1881, 1888, 1894	The penny denomination in the new standard 12-pence system. Obverse: the enlarged Wyon Victoria portrait; reverse: the heater-shaped shield of arms dividing the date, STATES OF JERSEY above, ONE TWELFTH OF A SHILLING below. Struck at Heaton and Sons, Birmingham (1877) and Royal Mint for later issues. Diameter: 30.5 mm. Weight: 9.15 g. Bronze. All Victoria 1/12 shilling issues from 1877 through 1894 use Wyon's portrait design, though his initials appear only on the pre-1877 issues. The reverse shield design — the heater-shaped Jersey Arms — was Wyon's own work, and it endured as the basis of all Jersey coin reverses until the Kruger-Gray redesign of 1923.
Jersey	1/24 Shilling (= ½ penny) Victoria, 1877, 1888, 1894	Half-penny denomination in the new standard system. Same Wyon portrait obverse (enlarged version); same heater shield reverse adapted for the smaller format. Diameter: 25.5 mm. Bronze. The 1/24 shilling continued in use alongside the 1/12 shilling throughout the Victoria series and was carried forward — with Wyon's portrait adapted for the new reign — into the Edward VII issues of 1909 by de Saulles.
Jersey	The Enduring Reverse: The Jersey Shield Design	The most lasting contribution Wyon made to Jersey numismatics was not his obverse portrait but his heater-shaped shield reverse. The Arms of Jersey — Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale Or — rendered in a clean, upright heater shield dividing the date, with the denomination in words below and STATES OF JERSEY arching above — was Wyon's design. Adapted and refined by Kruger-Gray in 1923 and again in 1931, the fundamental layout Wyon established in 1866 persisted on Jersey coins until 1983 — a span of 117 years.
The Designs — British Coinage
Design	1860 The Bronze Penny & the "Bun" Head	In 1860 Parliament passed an Act extending the coinage enactments to coins of mixed metal. L. C. Wyon was invited to prepare designs for the new British bronze denominations — penny, halfpenny, and farthing. It was stipulated that Britannia must not be omitted from the reverse, as she had been present on the copper coinage since the reign of Charles II. The Queen herself took a personal interest and gave Wyon several sittings for her portrait. The effigy he created — Victoria with her hair drawn back in a plaited bun — became known popularly as the "Bun Head" penny, and remained in circulation until decimalisation in 1971: 111 years after it first appeared. Wyon's first attempt engraved the original dies too deeply, rendering them liable to fracture after few strikes. He had to begin again with dies of shallower relief before mass production could proceed. The first British Imperial bronze coin was struck in 1860 and put into circulation in December of that year (Peck).
Design	1887 The Jubilee Coinage & the Controversial Crown	Wyon engraved the dies for the gold and silver coinage struck for the Golden Jubilee of Victoria in 1887. The designs were prepared from life by Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm RA. The resulting obverse — showing the Queen with a very small crown perched on top of her widow's veil — produced a storm of public disapproval. Place a finger over the crown, as the text notes, and it is simply a portrait of a widowed lady in mourning; the absurdity was entirely in the diminutive crown. Wyon only engraved what he was told to engrave and was not responsible for the design itself. The small crown — sometimes called the "widow's cap crown" — still exists among the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. Victoria had it made because she found the full-size crown too heavy to wear comfortably. The Jubilee Head was so unpopular that it was replaced by the "Old Head" (Veiled Head) designed by Sir Thomas Brock and engraved by de Saulles in 1893.
Design	Stamps	Like his father before him, Leonard Charles Wyon also produced dies for postage and other stamps. His work in this area complements his coin designs, reflecting the same disciplined approach to small-format portrait work.
Empire & Colonial Coinage
Empire	1851–1891 British Empire	Like his father before him, Leonard Charles Wyon prepared many dies for coinage use in various parts of the British Empire. As Forrer records: "Many of the dies used for striking the gold, silver and copper, bronze and nickel coins of different denominations, which were issued for currency in various parts of the British Empire after the death of William Wyon, were prepared by Leonard Charles Wyon, either from his own designs, other artists' models, or drawings supplied to him by the British and some of the British Overseas Governments." Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, vol. VIII, 1930, p. 299.
Empire	Selected territories	The countries for which Leonard Charles Wyon prepared coinage dies include: Australia, British East Africa, British Guiana, the West Indies, British Honduras, British India; the British Indian Native States of Alwar, Bikanir, Dhar and Dhar; Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Jersey, Malta, Mauritius, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the Straits Settlements. A large number of pattern pieces were also produced by L. C. Wyon, not a few for suggested decimal coin proposals. His output of medals was also very considerable and he designed a number of coins for foreign governments.
Medals & Other Works
Medals	1851–1891 Military Medals	L. C. Wyon prepared the dies for the majority of British military and naval campaign medals issued between his appointment in 1851 and his death in 1891 — a continuous output of forty years spanning the Crimea, Indian Mutiny, numerous colonial campaigns in Africa, Afghanistan, and the Far East. He inherited this responsibility from his father and executed it with comparable thoroughness. Specific medals include the Afghanistan Medal 1878–1880 and many others documented in the Royal Mint archives and the Museums Victoria collections.
Medals	1862 International Exhibition	Designed and engraved the official prize medal for the 1862 International Exhibition, London — one of the largest public events of the Victorian era and a prestigious commission. The medal was issued in gold, silver, and bronze.
Medals	1851 Royal Academy Turner Medal	Designed the Turner Medal for the Royal Academy of Arts in 1851 — the prize awarded in the name of J. M. W. Turner, whose bequest funded it. The medal remains in use by the Royal Academy to this day.
Medals	1843 The Earliest Known Work	Forrer describes the earliest known example of Leonard Charles Wyon's work, executed in 1843 when he was just sixteen years old. One side bears the legend W. WYON R.A. CUDI JUSSIT and a representation of the head of King Louis XVIII of France (not William Wyon, as erroneously stated in most catalogues) — with, below the truncation, the inscription LEONARD C. WYON 1843. The other side is a copy of the obverse of the Crown of Oliver Cromwell by Thomas Simon, very well imitated. "This struck piece is of much interest and excessively rare." — Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists.
Legacy
Legacy	The Wyon End	With Leonard Charles Wyon's death in 1891, the continuous Wyon presence at the Royal Mint — spanning his cousin Thomas Junior (Chief Engraver 1815–1817), his father William (Chief Engraver 1828–1851), and his own forty-year tenure — came to an end. His successor, George William de Saulles, represented a new generation: trade-trained, commercially seasoned, from Birmingham rather than born within the Mint itself.
Legacy	The "Bun" Penny: 111 Years	The bronze penny portrait Wyon modelled from life — Victoria with her "bun" hairstyle — remained in circulation until decimalisation on 15 February 1971. No other British coin portrait has been in everyday use for so long. The design was still familiar to people who had never heard the name Wyon.
Legacy	The Jersey Shield: 117 Years	The heater-shaped shield reverse Wyon designed for Jersey in 1866 — three golden lions passant on a red ground, the date split either side, denomination below — was the template for every Jersey bronze coin reverse until 1983. Kruger-Gray adapted it in 1923 and refined it again in 1931, but the fundamental composition was Wyon's. It is one of the longest-lived coin reverse designs in British numismatic history. Sources: Wikipedia, Leonard Charles Wyon · Museums Victoria collections · Jerripedia, Jersey's Copper Coinage · Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, vol. VIII · Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Philip Attwood, 2004) · Peck, British Museum Catalogue.

Biography — Full Account

Leonard Charles Wyon, eldest son of William Wyon, was born in one of the houses in the Royal Mint in 1826. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, which was then in Charterhouse Square on the north-eastern edge of the City of London. His father taught him art and Leonard inherited great skill in die engraving. By the age of 16 he had already made several medals and some of his early work can be seen in the British Museum collection. In 1844 he became Second Engraver at the Mint on the retirement of Merlen. He was still only 18 and at the age of 24 he succeeded his father with the title of Modeller and Engraver in 1851. At this time de Saulles was Engraver to the Mint. A title 'Engraver to the Royal Mint' seems to have continued until the reign of Edward VII (1901–10). As will be seen, the appointment was a fortunate one. Leonard's contribution to our coinage was prolific. More than this, his association with his father and his knowledge of the rather narrow artistic requirements of coinage design may have prevented him from wider flights of artistic fancy and produced a man who, born within the Mint, appreciated only that art form which was applicable to coinage. This suggestion may be proved by the story of his work. Certainly he was trained by his father especially for this type of artistry. One of Leonard Charles Wyon's designs with which people today are still familiar is the bronze Penny, popularly known as the 'Bun' Penny on account of the queen's hair style. The story of this piece is worth telling in detail, if only because the coin was still in circulation until decimalisation some 110 years after it first appeared.

The Bronze Coinage of 1860

By the late 1850s it was realised that the copper Penny (and its half and quarter) was now too large to be an acceptable coin in daily use. Copper was also an expensive metal for such minor denominations. It is only remarkable that it had been used at all in its pure state from as far back as 1672. During the first part of the reign the three copper pieces still carried William Wyon's fine portrait of the queen as a young woman, though over twenty years had passed since she was crowned.

In 1860 Parliament passed an Act 'to extend the enactments relating to the copper coin to coin of mixed metal'. L. C. Wyon was invited to prepare designs for the new bronze denominations. It was stipulated that on no account was Britannia to be omitted from the reverse. To do so, it was felt, would be to admit that Britain had relinquished her position as ruler of the seas, a place which she had uninterruptedly maintained on the copper coinage since the time of Charles II; though whether, in his reign at any rate, such pretensions could be fully sustained was at times questionable. Moreover it could be questioned whether Britannia, as she originally appeared on the copper coinage of Charles II, with no sea or ships in sight, had any naval significance. The knowledge of those who framed the Act apparently went back only to 1797.

The queen herself took a personal interest in the design for the new minor coinage and gave several sittings to L. C. Wyon for her portrait. The artist submitted a number of designs for Her Majesty's approval, one of which she adopted. In 1860 the first British Imperial bronze coin was struck at the Royal Mint. According to Peck it was put into circulation in December.

L. C. Wyon, in his desire to give a bold relief to the designs on the new bronze pieces, engraved the original dies so deeply that they were liable to fracture after relatively few pieces had been struck from them. He therefore had to start again and, after he had produced dies of less bold relief, mass-production of the bronze coinage began.

Thus the story of the birth of the bronze Penny as we know it. A large number of varieties of the piece exist among the Pennies of the period which went into circulation. They are too numerous to illustrate here but can be studied in Peck's British Museum Catalogue.

The 1887 Jubilee Coinage

L. C. Wyon engraved the dies for the gold and silver coinage struck for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. This coinage, the designs for which were prepared from life by Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm RA, produced a storm of disapproval, directed particularly against the effigy of the queen. How this obverse design was passed by the queen herself is a small mystery. At least Wyon only engraved what he was told to engrave and was not responsible for the design itself.

The queen is portrayed, as can be seen, with a very small crown perched on top of her head, over a widow's veil, which would be black and which was worn out of respect for her late husband, the Prince Consort. Place your finger over the crown and there is nothing odd about the portrait: it is just that of a widowed lady in mourning. The disapprobation therefore turns upon the ridiculously small crown. This crown still exists and can be seen among the Crown Jewels at the Tower. It is said that the queen had it made and wore it on suitable occasions because she found the full-size crown too heavy. When she (and the public) saw herself as others saw her, did she, as many of us do, suddenly become aware that she was wearing a 'hat' that did not suit her?

Save for the Crown and the three larger gold coins on which the St George and dragon design appeared, none of the obverses or reverses of the 1887 Jubilee coinage contained any of the designs of Pistrucci. On the Sovereign a crowned shield of arms appeared until 1871, a similar shield appearing on the Half Sovereign until 1893. On the Double Florin and the Florin the four shields of arms, set cruciform, returned; a reversion to the design precedent of 1662. The same applied to the Gothic Crown and Gothic Florin. Otherwise shields of arms, with or without the Garter, occupied many of the reverses. In the main both the Young Head and Jubilee Head coinage of Victoria were conservative in design, except only for that unfortunate crowned bust on the coinage of 1887 and for the exuberance of the Gothic Crown and Florin.

Empire Coinage & Medals

Leonard Charles Wyon, like his father before him, prepared many dies for coinage use in various parts of the British Empire. "Many of the dies used for striking the gold, silver and copper, bronze and nickel coins of different denominations," says Forrer, "which were issued for currency in various parts of the British Empire after the death of William Wyon, were prepared by Leonard Charles Wyon, either from his own designs, other artists' models, or drawings supplied to him by the British and some of the British Overseas Governments." The countries concerned included Australia, British East Africa, British Guiana, the West Indies, British Honduras, British India; the British India Native States of Alwar, Bikanir, Dhar and Dhar; Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Jersey, Malta, Mauritius, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Straits Settlements.

A large number of very fine and interesting pattern pieces were also produced by L. C. Wyon, not a few of them for suggested decimal coins. His output of medals was also very considerable and he designed a number of coins for foreign governments.

The Earliest Known Work (1843)

One of the most unusual pieces was produced early in his career, in 1843. This is described by Forrer:

L. C. Wyon died on 20 August 1891 but some of his designs and dies continued to be used as late as 1901.