William Wyon RA Chief Engraver to the Royal Mint, 1828–1851 & Designer of Jersey Coinage
1795, Birmingham · 29 October 1851, Brighton · Royal Academician 1838
Reverse by William Wyon
Visit to the City of London, 1837
The portrait used for the Penny Black
| Phase | Date / Place | Event & Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Life & Training | ||
| Life | 1795 Birmingham |
Born in Birmingham, the son of Peter Wyon (1767–1822), an engraver and die-sinker. His uncle Thomas Wyon the Elder (1767–1830) was already in London as Chief Engraver of the King's Seals; his cousin Thomas Wyon Junior (1792–1817) would soon become Chief Engraver of the Royal Mint. William was born into the most distinguished die-engraving dynasty in British history. Peter Wyon was the brother of Thomas Wyon the Elder; both were sons of George Wyon, the Birmingham founder of the family engraving tradition. After Thomas moved to London around 1800 they divided their joint business, Peter remaining in Birmingham. |
| Life | 1809 Birmingham |
Apprenticed to his father at the age of 14, learning die-engraving at the Soho Mint — Matthew Boulton's celebrated Birmingham mint, already famous for the quality of its coinage and the precision of its machinery. The Soho Mint gave Wyon a thorough grounding in the commercial and technical aspects of coin production alongside artistic training. The Soho Mint (1788–1850) was one of the most technically advanced mints in the world. Working there exposed the young Wyon to steam-powered coin striking, collar dies, and edge milling — the full industrial context of his art. |
| Life | 1812–1816 London |
Visits London in 1812 and is persuaded to enter a die competition run by the Society of Arts. He studies the works of John Flaxman, the great British Neoclassical sculptor, whose influence on his coin portraiture would prove lasting. In 1816, on the appointment of his cousin Thomas Junior as Chief Engraver, William enters a competition for the post of Second Engraver. His entry — a bust of George III — is initially rejected by the Master of the Mint, William Wellesley-Pole, who does not wish to employ more of the Wyon family. The competition is judged by Sir Thomas Lawrence, however, who awards William the prize, and he is duly appointed. Wellesley-Pole's hostility to the Wyon family was personal as much as institutional. Lawrence's endorsement was decisive. William began work at the Mint in 1816, only a year before his cousin Thomas Junior died — which would leave him the principal engraver in all but the formal title for the next twelve years. |
| Life | 1817–1828 Royal Mint |
On the death of Thomas Junior in September 1817, the position of Chief Engraver falls vacant. The post is contested between Wyon and the Italian gem-engraver Benedetto Pistrucci. Pistrucci's foreign nationality makes official appointment problematic; the matter is not fully resolved until 1828, when Pistrucci is designated Chief Medallist and William Wyon is at last formally appointed Chief Engraver. He had effectively been performing the Chief Engraver's duties for approximately four years before that formal appointment. The Pistrucci–Wyon rivalry was one of the most productive creative tensions in British numismatic history. The two men were radically different in temperament and method — Pistrucci the Italian gem-engraver, Wyon the Birmingham neoclassicist — and their competition drove both to exceptional work. |
| Life | 1831 Royal Academy |
Elected Associate of the Royal Academy — a remarkable honour for a coin engraver, reflecting the esteem in which his work was held beyond the specialist numismatic world. Promoted to full Royal Academician in 1838, the first medallist to receive that honour. The Royal Academy elections underline that Wyon's contemporaries regarded him as a fine artist, not merely a craftsman. His elevation to full RA coincides with the year his Young Head portrait of Victoria entered circulation. |
| Life | 29 Oct 1851 Brighton |
Dies at Brighton, aged 56. The intense pace of his work — at least 43 different British coin designs, innumerable colonial dies, hundreds of medals — is thought to have contributed to his early death. His son Leonard Charles Wyon (1826–1891) succeeds him as Modeller and Engraver to the Royal Mint. Obituary published in The Times, 8 November 1851. Victoria's reign would continue for a further fifty years after Wyon's death, yet his Young Head portrait remained on British gold and silver coinage until 1887. His portrait of Victoria for her City of London medal (1837) formed the basis for postage stamps used until 1902 — more than half a century after he died. |
| Jersey Coinage — William Wyon's Designs | ||
| Jersey | Context: The Jersey Copper Series |
Jersey's first official coinage — the 1813 silver tokens — had been designed by Thomas Wyon Junior. The island's first copper coinage, however, was a later undertaking, arriving during William Wyon's tenure as Chief Engraver. Jersey still used a 13-pence-to-the-shilling monetary system at this date, so the coins were denominated as fractions of a shilling: 1/13, 1/26, and 1/52. Wyon's Young Head portrait of Queen Victoria formed the obverse of all issues. The 13-pence system was a survival of Norman reckoning peculiar to the Channel Islands. Jersey's copper coinage was therefore denominated differently from English coinage, though struck at the Royal Mint and using Wyon's standard obverse portrait. |
| Jersey | 1/52 Shilling (= ¼ penny) Victoria, 1841 |
Farthing denomination. Obverse: Wyon's Young Head of Victoria, diademed, legend VICTORIA D.G. BRITANNIAR. REGINA F.D. Reverse: the Jersey heater-shaped shield of arms; STATES OF JERSEY / ONE FIFTY-SECOND OF A SHILLING. Struck at the Royal Mint. Mintage 1841: 116,480. Diameter: 21.90 mm. Copper. A proof-only issue was produced in 1861 (no circulation pieces that year). KM# 1, J# 57. |
| Jersey | 1/26 Shilling (= ½ penny) Victoria, 1841, 1844, 1851, 1858, 1861 |
Half-penny denomination. Same Wyon obverse; reverse: Jersey shield, STATES OF JERSEY / ONE TWENTY-SIXTH OF A SHILLING. This is the most numerous of the three denominations in the Jersey copper series, struck in five separate years across Wyon's tenure and beyond. Mintages: 1841: 232,960 · 1844: 232,960 · 1851: 173,333 · 1858: 173,333 · 1861: 173,333. Diameter: c. 28.1–28.2 mm. Copper. KM# 2, J# 34–38. The 1844 issue was struck under Royal Mint file MINT 1/39 authority. |
| Jersey | 1/13 Shilling (= 1 penny) Victoria, 1841, 1844, 1851, 1858, 1861, 1865 |
Penny denomination and the flagship of the Jersey copper series. Obverse: Wyon's Young Head; reverse: heater shield of Jersey Arms, STATES OF JERSEY / ONE THIRTEENTH OF A SHILLING. Six issues over a period spanning Wyon's death; the 1865 piece was proof only. Mintages: 1841: 116,480 · 1844: 145,600 · 1851: 173,333 · 1858: 173,333 · 1861: 173,333 · 1865: proof only. Diameter: c. 34.1–34.2 mm. Copper. KM# 3, J# 3–8. Wyon died in 1851; the issues of 1858, 1861, and 1865 were struck from his original dies or their derivatives, the obverse design unchanged. |
| Jersey | Posthumous Issues 1858, 1861, 1865 |
Wyon died in October 1851, yet the 1/26 and 1/13 shilling issues of 1858 and 1861 were struck from his design — the Young Head portrait — unchanged. His dies or working copies thereof continued to produce coins for Jersey for a decade after his death. The 1865 piece was a proof only. His son Leonard Charles Wyon succeeded him at the Mint in 1851 and would eventually redesign the series. This posthumous continuation mirrors the situation with Thomas Wyon Junior, whose silver coinage dies were used for years after his death in 1817. The Wyon family's designs routinely outlasted their creators. |
| Masterworks — Selected British Designs | ||
| Design | 1817 Three Graces Pattern Crown |
Wyon's earliest major design, produced at his own expense aged 22. The reverse depicts England, Ireland, and Scotland as the three Graces — a neoclassical allegory of union. Only around 50 pattern pieces were struck and it never entered circulation, but it announced extraordinary talent. The design drew on Antonio Canova's celebrated sculpture of the same subject and on the recently arrived Elgin Marbles for its classical inspiration. The Three Graces pattern is among the rarest and most sought-after of all British pattern coins. The Royal Mint reissued it as a collector's piece in 2020. Legend on the pattern: Fœdus inviolabile. |
| Design | 1820s George IV & William IV Portraits |
Wyon engraved the coinage portraits of both George IV and William IV during this period. His George IV portrait was based on a bust by Sir Francis Chantrey; his William IV portrait similarly derived from a Chantrey model. The Lion sixpences and shillings of George IV — with a crowned lion reverse — are considered particularly fine examples of his style. |
| Design | 1838 The Young Head |
Queen Victoria first sat for Wyon as a princess of 13; he produced a medallic portrait for her 18th birthday. She then gave him multiple sittings in August and September 1837 for the new coinage portrait. The resulting effigy — Victoria diademed, hair in soft waves, the epitome of Neoclassical restraint — was approved in February 1838 and entered circulation in the summer of that year. It appeared on all British coinage from the farthing to the sovereign, and on colonial coinage around the Empire. Victoria was in her late sixties before she allowed it to be replaced. "You always represent me favorably," she is reported to have told Wyon. He, for his part, is said to have found her an excellent sitter. The Young Head remained on British gold and silver coinage until the Jubilee Head of 1887 — nearly fifty years. |
| Design | 1839 Una and the Lion |
The reverse of the gold five-pound proof piece of 1839 — Wyon's most celebrated single design. The young Victoria appears as Lady Una from Edmund Spenser's allegorical poem The Faerie Queene (1590), guiding a lion (representing the strength of England) with calm authority. Widely considered one of the most beautiful coins ever struck; described by academics and dealers as "beyond improvement." Only 300–500 examples were produced, making it one of the rarest British gold coins. The 1839 Una and the Lion was the first coin in the Royal Mint's Great Engravers series (2019), reissued as a proof in various metals to mark the 180th anniversary of the original. Its combination of Wyon's Young Head obverse with this extraordinary reverse is considered the summit of his achievement. |
| Design | 1847 Gothic Crown |
A crowned bust of Victoria in the fashionable Gothic revival style, adopted for the proof crowns of 1847 and later for the Gothic florin (1851–1887). The reverse features the royal arms displayed in four Gothic shields, with elaborate heraldic quartering. It is the most overtly medieval of Wyon's Victoria portraits and represents the Romantic antiquarian tendency running alongside his Neoclassicism. The 1847 Gothic Crown is one of the most admired Victorian coins. The florin of 1849 that adopted a related portrait was controversial for a different reason — it was the first British coin to omit the traditional D.G. (Dei Gratia) from the sovereign's titles, earning it the nickname the "Godless Florin." |
| Empire & Colonial Coinage | ||
| Empire | 1816–1851 British Empire |
Wyon is listed as the engraver of at least 43 different coins struck for circulation in England alone. He also prepared numerous dies for British territories across the Empire. His Young Head portrait of Victoria appeared on colonial coinages alongside its use on British denominations, giving it a geographic reach matched only by his City Medal portrait on postage stamps. Forrer's Biographical Dictionary of Medallists lists him as responsible for coins of the following territories (among others): the West Indies, British India, Ceylon, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Ionian Islands, Ireland, Jersey, Malta, Mauritius, New Brunswick, Penang, the Straits Settlements, and New Granada. |
| Empire | 1819 Ionian Islands |
Designed the coinage for the Ionian Islands — a British protectorate (the United States of the Ionian Islands) — in 1819. An early colonial commission demonstrating the breadth of his responsibilities as Second Engraver in the years before his formal appointment as Chief. |
| Empire | Portugal Queen Maria II |
Commissioned to prepare a portrait of Queen Maria II for the coinage of Portugal — a rare foreign sovereign commission that testifies to the international standing of his reputation. William IV is said to have ungallantly remarked that the Queen was rather plain; Wyon's task was accordingly delicate. The anecdote — that William IV made an unflattering remark about Queen Maria's appearance — is recorded in the source text and illustrates the diplomatic dimension of a royal portrait commission. |
| Medals, Stamps & Other Works | ||
| Medals | 1837 City of London Medal |
A medal for Victoria's visit to the City of London in November 1837, showing the Queen wearing a jewelled diadem. This portrait — distinct from the coinage Young Head — became the design used as the basis for the world's first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black of 1840. His medallic portrait thus launched the postage system that would transform global communications; it appeared on British stamps for more than sixty years. |
| Medals | 1840 The Penny Black |
Wyon's City Medal portrait of 1837 was adapted by Henry Corbould and engraved by the Heath brothers to create the Penny Black — the world's first adhesive postage stamp, issued 6 May 1840. The line-engraved portrait incorporated security elements including an engine-turned background. Wyon's profile of the young Victoria remained on British stamps until after her death in 1901. |
| Medals | 1851 Great Exhibition Medals |
Shortly before his death, Wyon completed conjoint portraits of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort for the Great Exhibition medals of 1851 — his final major commission. The Great Exhibition, held at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, was Prince Albert's defining achievement; Wyon's medals are among the last works he produced. |
| Medals | Selected Medals: 1812–1851 |
Among his extensive medallic output: Alexander I of Russia (1812); Ceres medal (1813); Earl Howe for Mudie's National Series (1818); Sir Walter Scott (1824); London Bridge (1825); Harrow School Peel Medal (1826); Burmese War medal (1826); University of London medal (1827); Royal Institution Fuller Medal (1828); Coronation Medal of William IV (1831); Coronation Medal of Victoria (1838); campaign and general service medals; Great Exhibition prize medals (1851). His head of Queen Adelaide for the Coronation Medal of 1831 was particularly admired for the speed with which it was completed. His portrait of Victoria for the Coronation Medal of 1838 was prepared in competition with Pistrucci — a public dispute about their respective merits was carried on in the press in 1837–38. |
| Legacy | ||
| Legacy | The Royal Academy | His election as a full Royal Academician in 1838 — the first medallist so honoured — was the clearest possible statement by the British art establishment that coin engraving could be fine art. Wyon's elevation did much to raise the status of numismatic design in the eyes of the public and his contemporaries. |
| Legacy | The Young Head: 49 Years |
The Young Head portrait entered circulation in 1838 and remained on British gold and silver coinage until 1887 — 49 years. No other coin portrait in British history has had so long an unbroken run on circulating coinage. The portrait was only replaced because Victoria had aged so dramatically beyond it; she was 68 when it finally disappeared from gold and silver denominations. |
| Legacy | The Penny Black: 62 Years |
His City Medal portrait of Victoria — adapted for the Penny Black — remained the design for British postage stamps from 1840 to 1902: 62 years. In terms of the number of impressions made from a single artist's design, this is almost certainly the most reproduced portrait in human history up to that date. |
| Legacy | Jersey: A 20-Year Series |
Wyon's Young Head portrait appeared on Jersey copper coins from 1841 to 1865 — a span of 24 years including posthumous issues. The shield reverse used on these coins was the direct ancestor of Leonard Charles Wyon's 1866 redesign, which itself endured until 1983. William Wyon's contribution to Jersey numismatics thus forms the second chapter in a 117-year story of Wyon family design. Sources: Royal Mint Chronicle Issue #58, Winter 1995 · Wikipedia, William Wyon · Museums Victoria collections · Dictionary of National Biography · Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists · jerseycoins.com/pen13/ · Young Head coinage, Wikipedia. |
The Wyon Family — Engravers to the Royal Mint
William Wyon — An Appreciation
In his prolific output between 1816 and 1851 there is much to admire in William Wyon's work: the Three Graces pattern crown of 1817, the seated Britannia of the 1820s, the Lion sixpences and shillings of George IV, and a regal Una and the Lion on the famous five pounds piece of 1839. They are, all of them, designs of charm and distinction, but they do not by themselves explain why Wyon's contemporaries, who elected him to the Royal Academy, held him in high regard nor why modern numismatists cherish his memory with such affection. His enduring reputation rests rather on his coin portraits of Queen Victoria. They begin early, for the Queen first sat for him as a young Princess of thirteen and he produced a medallic portrait for her eighteenth birthday. This was followed by a portrait in lower relief for the new Queen's coins, which began to find their way into circulation in the summer of 1838. In 1847 came a crowned bust in fashionable Gothic style, adopted for the proof crowns of that year and, later, for the controversial florins of 1849. However, it is the portrait of the 1838 coinage that undoubtedly takes first prize. Wyon was clearly inspired by his admiration of the neo-classical style of his mentor Flaxman to create an uncluttered and well balanced portrait. Now, lovingly known as the Young Head, its beautiful features flatter the Queen, who was a grandmother in her late sixties before she allowed it to disappear from the coinage.
If the many thousands of coin collectors in the United Kingdom were asked to nominate the three finest engravers ever to produce designs for the home coinage it is likely that William Wyon would find a place on everyone's list. In his prolific output between 1816 and 1851 there is much to admire: the Three Graces pattern crown of 1817, the seated Britannia of the 1820s, the Lion sixpence and shillings of George IV, and a regal Una and the Lion on the famous five pounds piece of 1839. These are, all of them, designs of charm and distinction, but they do not by themselves explain why Wyon's contemporaries, who elected him to the Royal Academy, held him in high regard nor why modern numismatists cherish his memory with such affection.
His enduring reputation rests rather on his coin and medal portraits of Queen Victoria. They begin early, for the Queen first sat for him as a young Princess of thirteen and he produced a medallic portrait for her eighteenth birthday. This was followed by a portrait in lower relief for the new Queen's coins, which began to find their way into circulation in the summer of 1838, and by a diademed portrait for a medal commemorating the Queen's visit to the City of London in November 1837, a portrait better remembered now as that used for the Penny Black stamps of 1840.
In 1847 came a crowned bust in fashionable Gothic style, adopted for the proof crowns of that year and, later, for the controversial florins of 1849. About the same time another diademed portrait was prepared for campaign and general service medals, and finally, shortly before his death, he completed conjoint portraits of the Queen and the Prince Consort for Great Exhibition medals of 1851.
Of these portraits, that approved for the coinage in 1838 undoubtedly takes pride of place. Wyon was clearly inspired by his admiration of the neo-classical style of his mentor Flaxman to create an uncluttered and well balanced portrait. Now familiarly known as the Young Head, its beautiful features flattered the Queen, who was a grandmother in her late sixties before she allowed it to disappear from the coinage. "You always represent me favorably", she is reported to have told Wyon, while he, for his part, is said to have found the Queen an excellent sitter.
His skill in portraiture was not of course restricted to representations of Queen Victoria. He it was who engraved coinage portraits of George IV and William IV, though these were not entirely his own work since they were based on busts by the sculptor Chantrey. Many medallic portraits, both private and official, also testify to his genius and his head of Queen Adelaide for the Coronation Medal of 1831 was additionally remarkable for the unaccustomed speed with which it was finished.
So established was his reputation that he was commissioned to prepare a portrait of Queen Maria II for the coinage of Portugal, not the easiest of tasks if the Queen really was as plain as William IV ungallantly insisted. It seems scarcely credible, given the precocity of his talent, that there should ever have been doubts about his ability and that a Master of the Mint, no less, should have advised him not to waste his time attempting to do heads. Perhaps these doubts were created by a modesty of manner so unlike the egotistical assertiveness of his great rival Benedetto Pistrucci but, whatever their cause, they were quickly dispelled by an output of coins and medals that remains truly remarkable.
The Bicentenary Medal
Front
Back
Obverse
Reverse
The Death of William Wyon — The Times, 8 November 1851
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