Coins of St Helena: A Tale of Unfortunate Timing
By Denis Richard, Coin Photography Studio
May 5, 2024
8-minute read
1821 St Helena Halfpenny
As the saying goes, timing is everything. This was certainly true for the governors of St. Helena back in 1821 when they found themselves with an excess of copper halfpennies, thanks to the death of Napoleon Bonaparte.
St Helena, a black, volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, is one of the most isolated places on the planet. It is 4,500 miles from England and 1,200 miles off the coast of West Africa. St Helena island was uninhabited when it was discovered in 1502, and throughout the centuries that followed, the tiny island, measuring just ten miles long and five miles wide, served as a crucial layover for ships voyaging from Asia and South Africa to Europe.
This desolate speck of land is the very place to which our featured copper coin was sent.
Town of St James, Island of St Helena, in 1794, published in London, 1813.
The Scourge of Europe
Napoleon Bonaparte, the notorious French leader, abdicated the throne after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. It was Napoleon's second abdication in as many years, and the British were skeptical of his intentions. The Corsican had already escaped one island exile on Elba, so they needed a distant and secure place to ensure the troublesome emperor would not be back a second time. St. Helena seemed the ideal spot.
In the late summer of 1815, the British dispatched the HMS Northumberland on a ten-week journey to bring Napoleon and his household staff (who were going into exile with him) to St. Helena. The armada included three troop ships carrying a battalion of British soldiers who would form the first garrison of the island, stationed for a two-year tour of duty.
"Napoleon Bonaparte on the deck of HMS Northumberland." Drawn by Captain Denzil Ibbetson, who traveled with Napoleon aboard the HMS Northumberland for the journey to his exile on St Helena.
Napoleon's arrival in October utterly upended the tranquil life of St. Helena. The emperor's entourage and an additional 2,000 guard troops nearly doubled the island's population. Upon arrival, the British took immediate measures to transform the island into a prison, ensuring Napoleon's captivity was secure and beyond his reach.
From the earliest days of settlement on St Helena, English coins circulated alongside Indian gold rupees, Spanish dollars, and whatever money was brought ashore from passing ships. While gold and silver coins were generally available, the copper coins of everyday transactions were often in short supply. The population explosion that accompanied Napoleon’s arrival only exacerbated the problem.
No End In Sight
Fast-forward five years to 1821, as Napoleon's exile drags on. With no end in sight, the East India Company (EIC), governors of the island, decided to improve its copper coinage, which was needed more by the sizable British contingent serving as guards than for the island's inhabitants. On March 27, 1821, the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company, based in England, placed an order with Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint in Birmingham for the supply of halfpenny coinages specifically struck for use on the island. The EIC requested £1,000 worth of halfpenny pieces, amounting to 702,704 coins. Our featured coin was part of this order.
The reverse of the coin is simple, reading "ST HELENA, 1821, HALFPENNY," encircled by a laurel wreath. The light nicks and scratches mean this coin saw limited use during its time in circulation on the island. There also appears to be a die crack around 8 o’clock.
Obverse: Coat of arms of the East India Company. In 1657, Oliver Cromwell granted the East India Company a charter to govern Saint Helena. The shield is quartered with the arms of France and England in the first quarter. The abbreviated text on the banner below the arms reads: AUSP: REGIS & SENAT ANGLIÆ, translating to Auspicio regis et senatus angliæ (Under the auspices of the King and the Senate of England)
Along with the official coins, a local establishment, Solomon, Dickson, and Taylor, authorized a subsequent order with the Soho Mint for £147, totaling 70,560 unofficial halfpenny merchant tokens. Despite their unofficial status, these halfpenny merchant tokens were widely accepted and circulated alongside the official coins.
With the two coinage orders in place, the currency supply in St. Helena was poised to improve. However, Napoleon's life in exile did not mirror the same fortune. While Bonaparte was always respected and treated like a general, he was still a prisoner, heavily guarded, and his life was governed by regulations, even denying him newspapers.
Napoleon's island home, Longwood House, was spacious by St Helena standards but hardly palatial. Situated on the windswept high ground of the island, the home was damp and regularly immersed in clouds. The years of isolation and monotony of life on St Helena took its toll. Napoleon's energy waned, and he succumbed to bouts of lethargy and depression, increasingly retreating into solitude. Napoleon's health continued to deteriorate, and by spring, it was clear that the island would soon be relieved of its famous prisoner.
On May 5, 1821, at 51 years old, General and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte drew his last breath in Longwood House on St Helena Island, far from his cherished France.
The Last To Know
From such a remote place, news travels slowly. The war sloop, Heron, carrying two emissaries with news of Napoleon's death, departed St Helena on May 7th or 8th. The journey would last two months.
As the HMS Heron sailed toward England, the Soho Mint (seen right) completed their order for St Helena and loaded the halfpenny coin featured here - and hundreds of thousands more - into 44 casks. The Soho Mint preferred shipping coins in casks, even though they were expensive, costing as much as 1/20 the value of the coins they contained. Despite the expense, casks minimized the risk of theft and simplified the tracking of shipments.
For lengthy ocean voyages like the trip to St. Helena, coin barrels were often sealed with wax to protect the copper from corrosion by seawater while stored in the ship's lowest sections. Sealing barrels with wax has a long history, dating back to Roman times.
The image here, courtesy of the Charlestown Shipwreck Treasure Museum, is a cask full of coins discovered unopened on the Admiral Gardner, a ship that met its fate in 1809 on the Goodwin Sands. This cache, discovered in 1983, consisted of four tons of copper coins minted by Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint. The coins, carefully packed in wax, were destined for India, and intended for circulation at the various trading posts of the East India Company. However, whether the casks sent to St Helena were waxed remains uncertain. If you, dear reader, have any information about that, please share it in the comments below.
Meanwhile, back in 1821, stevedores along the bustling English shipyard docks were busy loading coin casks onto ships destined for St. Helena. Containing more than three-quarters of a million coins, they weighed six tons in total. On June 5, the Heron and its fateful news were still a month away from Enland’s shores as the coin laden ships set sail for St Helena.
Missed it by that much
By the time the coins arrived, the majority of the troops, military officers, and civil servants stationed there had already left. The islanders still welcomed the coins, and some were put into circulation, but as the demand had significantly decreased, the bulk remained in storage.
Over the next decade, as the island regained its tranquillity and slipped out of the world's spotlight, about 100,000 halfpennies, or 15%, entered circulation. In 1831, the EIC sent the remaining 5 tons of coins back to England and sold them to the Soho Mint for melting. The coin featured here, along with its numerous counterparts, would be the last time St Helena would see such an influx of new currency for 163 years when new coinage was again issued for the island in 1984.
Unfortunately, the timing of the 1821 St Helena copper halfpennies was not ideal. Had they arrived during Napoleon's lifetime, they may have gained greater recognition and value among collectors. Instead, their fate highlights the impact of timing and chance in the world of numismatics.
A Final Thought.
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Additional Coins:
The East India Company had plans for an 1823 Silver crown, and even patterns made, however, with Napoleon’s death, they were never produced.
An Empty Island
St Helena was uninhabited when the Portuguese discovered it in 1502. They made no permanent settlement there besides building a chapel and a handful of houses. Nevertheless, they introduced fruit trees, pigs, goats, and unfortunately, rats onto the island, disrupting an otherwise pristine ecosystem. In 1657, the British claimed the island. Oliver Cromwell granted the East India Company (EIC) a charter to govern Saint Helena, establishing one of Britain's earliest colonies (now called overseas territories) outside North America and the Caribbean.
Life in Exile
During his first few years on St Helena, Napoleon maintained a semblance of his former active lifestyle, engaging in walking and riding. He also spent considerable time reminiscing and dictating his memoirs. Always fearful of escape, Napoleon was heavily guarded. Naval ships circled the island and during the day, 125 men were stationed around his home, patrolling the plateau and acting as sentries. At night, 72 men were stationed outside the house as the entire island was placed under curfew. Residents had to have passwords to leave their homes at night, from nine in the evening till sunrise. Nightly patrols enforced this, and were instructed to detain anyone without passwords
Merchant Tokens
As for the Solomon, Dickson, and Taylor halfpennies, they circulated for years until their withdrawal in 1834, following the Crown's takeover of the island from the East India Company.
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
Lord Liverpool, the British Prime Minister of the day, wrote of sending Napoleon to St Helena as "the place in the world best calculated for the confinement of such a person… being so far from the European world, [Napoleon] would soon be forgotten." France faced a crushing defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, leading to Liverpool being honored with an appointment to the Order of the Garter within the same year.
References:
History of the exile
https://www.napoleonsthelena.com/en/history-of-the-exile/
Admiral Gardner
https://goodwinsands.org.uk/admiral-gardner/
1821 St Helena Halfpenny Token Numista
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces18419.html
Coins and Tokens of the Possessions and Colonies of the British Empire
James Atkins 1889
First Accounts of the “Death of Bonapart” in the British Newspapers.
https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/first-accounts-of-the-death-of-buonaparte-in-the-british-newspapers/
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