| Description | Letters and papers relating to the establishment of the Royal Mint, originally referred to as the “New Mint” or the “British Mint”, from 1805 to 1809. Boulton Watt & Co. supplied steam engines to the mint, and made the coining machinery on Matthew Robinson Boulton’s behalf. The bundle includes letters from the architect Robert Smirke and the Clerk of Works Thomas Pope, as well as Boulton Watt & Co.’s engineers John Southern, James Lawson and William Creighton. The majority of the letters are docketed by John Southern.
See Portfolios 5/716a—d for drawings of the Mint engines and machinery. See the next bundle, 3/521, for later correspondence relating to the Royal Mint. |