Great Recoinage of 1816

This was due to the cost of direct military and economic warfare against France as well as Britain's financing of a series of coalitions opposed to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic regimes.

Corn prices[note 2] halved at the end of the wars, when trade with Europe resumed.

[4] Likewise, European countries that relied on exporting corn to Britain in order to buy British manufactured goods were no longer able to do so.

[6] This massive recoinage programme by the Royal Mint created standard gold sovereigns and circulating crowns and half-crowns containing the now famous image of St. George and the Dragon by the Italian engraver Benedetto Pistrucci,[7] and eventually copper farthings in 1821.

To put a gold standard into effect, and avoid the pitfalls of bimetallism, silver coins were declared legal tender only for sums of money up to 40 shillings.

[9] The value of one troy pound (weighing 5,760 grains (373 g) of standard sterling silver (0.925 fineness)) was fixed by coining it into 66 shillings (or its equivalent in other denominations).