6: Simon Corbet, Monyer in the Tower of LOndon

The  Moneyers at the Tower of London Mint

  Simon Corbet the Elder,  my ninth great-grandfather, was born in about 1571 in Defford, Worcestershire - a small village located between the towns of Pershore and Upton-upon-Severn, and about 9 miles south of Worcester. 

He was the son of Henry Corbet of Newton, Shropshire and Amicia Clough, and his elder brother was Sir Edward Corbet (1569-1635). In 1597 he and Margaret Knyght were married at Defford and between 1599 and 1610 they baptised seven children in Defford.  

    

Money had been minted at London since before Edward the Confessor‘s reign (c.1003-66) at which time there were many mints throughout the kingdom, including Worcester.  In king Alfred’s time (849-899) there were about thirty mints and by the reign of Ethlered II (978-1016) the number had grown to more than seventy. These were mostly in the southern half of the country and there can have been few market towns of any consequence where coins were not struck but by the 16th century the Tower of London had achieved a monopoly on the production of coin of the realm.

Money had been coined at the Tower since William the Conquerer’s time and this continued under every succeeding Sovereign, except Richard I and Edward V, until the removal of the Mint to its present situation in George III's reign.  The earliest Mint being a Royal office was originally lodged somewhere within the Tower’s Inner Ward and was eventually removed to ‘Mint Street’ when many alterations in the arrangements of this important department of the State were made.

We must assume that Simon the Elder was skilled at minting money legally for the Crown at the Worcester Mint before 1611,  the time he moved to London.

His youngest child, Russell, was born in Defford in 1610, and soon after Simon left for London leaving most of his children behind. At least two of these, Thomas and William, married and baptised their children at Defford from 1627 until 1641. 

Despite Simon’s move the family ties with Defford were not entirely severed for in 1729 one of his London great great grandchildren was married at Birlingham, Worcestershire, the nearest village to Defford.

By 1616 Simon the Elder was living in Walthamstow, Essex and keeping cattle at Bethnal Green. On 5 and 6 September 1616 William Hollingsworth of Hackney, Thomas Darby (Darbie) of Bethnal Green and John Payne of Holywell Street appeared at the Middlesex Quarter Sessions for stealing 3 heifers each worth 46 shillings 3 pence. belonging to John Grubb of West Ham, Essex; and the said Darby for stealing a red heifer worth 50 shillings belonging to Simon Corbett of Walthamstow, Essex (monier) of Bethnal Green. The animals were all being kept at Hackney at the time. Simon’s 50 shilling red heifer would be worth about £243 in today’s money.

Thomas Darby was found guilty of the theft and since he had no goods which could be sold to pay compensation the sentence might have been death by hanging. However he asked to ‘seek the book‘ or what was more commonly known as ‘benefit of clergy’. This plea allowed him to have a bible brought to him to prove he could read.

Through the mechanism of ‘benefit of clergy‘, many defendants found guilty of certain felonies were spared the death penalty and given a lesser punishment. This dated back to the middle ages when benefit of clergy (and the ability to read) was originally a right accorded to the church, allowing it to punish its own members should they be convicted of a crime. In this instance the court did not prescribe any punishment for the defendant and instead handed him over to church officials to deal with.

It was difficult to prove who was affiliated with the church and convicts who claimed benefit of clergy were required to read a passage from the Bible. Judges usually chose verses from the 51st Psalm, which was termed the ‘neck verse‘, since it saved many people from hanging. This Psalm traditionally referred to as the Miserere, is one of the penitential psalms and begins ‘Have mercy on me, O God’.

Thomas Darby was able to read and the possible death sentence was commuted to being branded. Thieves who successfully pleaded benefit of clergy were branded on the thumb with a ‘T’ for theft (and ‘F’ for felon, or ‘M’ for murder), so that they would be unable to receive this benefit more than once. The branding took place in the courtroom at the end of the sessions and in front of spectators.

In these court records Simon was referred to as a ‘monier’ or one who mints money. To work legally as a monier/moneyer at this time one could only be employed to make coinage for the Crown or State and this places him working in the Mint in the Tower of London in 1616 when he was in his mid forties.

At this time those with sufficient income were responsible for paying a share in the cost of making highway repairs which often involved work rather than a cash payment. Simon the Elder was obviously comfortably off and had to provide his share of the parish work which he neglected to do in 1618 resulting in him being brought before the Essex Quarter Sessions for not providing 6 days labour on highways. While it was not necessary for him to actually carry out this labour himself, for he could have assigned it to an employee or paid someone else to carry out the work, he had not done so. The following year he again defaulted by not providing a cart for the same work for 6 days.

His sixth child, Simon the Younger, born and baptised in Defford on the 16th June 1607 , also became a ‘monier’ eventually and worked in the Mint. He was possibly apprenticed to his father for seven years when aged about 9 in 1616, the time his father went to London, and he appears to have been the only one of his siblings to move to London.  An apprenticeship would explain the child’s move at this time.

 In 1634, when he was twenty-seven,  Simon the Younger married Jane Benfield either at St Mary, Walthamstow or St Olave, Hart Street in the City for the marriage appears in both registers. With Simon living in Walthamstow probably the City church was the one which Jane attended. She was the daughter of John Benfield, Clerk of the Corporation of Moniers in the Tower of London and from later records it is clear that Simon and John Benfield worked together and the families knew each other well.

The period during which the two  Simons (the Elder and the Younger) were working at the Mint covered part of the reign of James I (1603-25), Charles I (1625-1649) and part of the Commonwealth (from 1649-60) and it appears that Simon the Elder was still the Provost in 1652 when he was over 70 years old.

The moniers (moneyers) were not involved with the engraving dies for coins but carried out the actual pressing of coins and their work was run as a semi-independent body organised under their Provost.

The names of those who held the post of Provost and the support given to them by the other moneyers shows the close fellowship there was amongst them. Included in the names on some documents are Michael Garnet, John Benfield and Simon Corbet.

To emphasise this close fellowship the son of one of the Corbet moniers was named Garnet Corbet, whose name appears in a document of 1652, after Provost Garnett , and in 1636 Michael Garnett was the Provost and held the post jointly with John Perrey.

Simon the Elder was provost in the Mint in 1637, 1639-40 and 1651-53, having first received payment on behalf of the company with Thomas Thornton (1637-9), and then with his son’s father in law John Benfield (1640-53), which implies that the provostship was held jointly.

Thomas Thornton and his successors were at the centre of a dispute at the Mint which came to a head on 29 November 1637 when the Privy Council instructed the attorney-general to bring Simon Corbet and other moneyers before the Star Chamber to answer charges of ‘stirring mutinies and seditions in the mint’. This was a serious charge for the Star Chamber’s purpose was to hear offences against the State or officers of the State who were involved in offences against the State. It was abolished four years later by the Long Parliament.

As far as the moneyers were concerned, the crux of the matter was Thornton's dishonesty. Earlier in 1635 they had charged him with defrauding both the king and themselves, and he fearing that he would be displaced voluntarily relinquished office. Notwithstanding the officers at the Mint had brought Thornton back against the moneyers objections but they had refused to accept his reinstatement. Not surprisingly, when called upon to give their own version of events the Mint officers firmly rebutted all that the moneyers had said.

So it happened that on 10th January 1638 (in the time of  Charles I reign 1624-49 and five years before the start of the Civil War) a warrant was issued for the arrest of Simon Corbet, who, by then, was then about 66 years old and he, William Nicoll and John Benfield were conveyed to the Fleet Prison.

Fleet prison was off Faringdon Road and so named because the river Fleet flowed outside the prison walls. Nothing was free in this notorious jail. Food and lodging had to be paid for by the prisoner and there were fees for turning keys, putting on of irons and for taking them off again. Even prison visitors had to pay fees and the Fleet had the highest fees in the country. 

The three men were in prison for 9 days and during that time they no doubt had the full support of their families and their fellow workers at the Mint. On the 19th the Warden of the Fleet was ordered ‘to set at liberty Simon Corbet, William Nicoll and John Benfield, moneyers’ and nothing more is heard of the matter.

The Commonwealth (1649-60) began by reproducing the Royal coinage but in time invented insignia of its own and the Tower Mint passed into the care of one Symonds but the following year Simon Corbet was again Provost.

A letter from the Provost and Moneyers of the Mint dated 18th February 1650 to Sir James Harrington, one of the Council of State and Chairman for the Committee of the Mint gave the prices tendered for making various coins. This was signed by Symon Corbet, Michael Garnet, John Benfield, John Corbett and others. Simon the Elder would have been over 80 or dead by this time so this Symon Corbet was probably his son who was then aged about 44.

In 1651 the Commonwealth authorities, who had received favourable reports on the Continental milled coins, invited Peter Blondeau in Paris to bring his machinery to London for trials. However he was not particularly welcome, either in Paris or London. He produced pattern half crowns, shillings and sixpences in silver all bearing the date 1651. A series of half-crown and sixpence milled patterns were also designed by an Englishman, David Ramage.

On 21st October 1651 Simon made another proposal to the Mint Committee concerning the coining of gold and silver moneys with letters about the edges, or grainings or otherwise plain by way of the mill.

These proposals were

1) The coining of £1000 a week in 5s, 2s 6d, 1s 6d, 2d and half penny  pieces will 

     cost  £1000 besides 1000 for buildings, mills and horses, which when provided, 

     the moneyers will keep in repair.

2) The company will receive the silver in standard from the office, bear all charges 

     for melting and workmanship, and deliver in at  20d the  pound.

3) They will work gold money, that is 20s, 10s and 5s pieces, at 8s the pound 

     weight, and gold at 5s.

These moneys were to be coined by way of mill and ‘if coined by hammer they will do at 11d for silver and 3s gold. As to the charge of melting and other fees incident to the Mint, which is different to their company, they refer themselves to the Commissioners.’ They also requested payment of £40 disbursed about the late trial with the Frenchman (presumably the following Peter (or Pierre) Blondeau). Signed Corbitt and ten others.

Edge lettering was a new idea for anti-counterfeiting and anti-clipping and would end the illegal profit made from ‘clipping or filing’ the edge of the silver or gold coins.

Peter Blondeau gave his objections to the details in the letter of the 21st October 1651 and suggested it was the un-evenness of the coining of the money which accounted for the short weight. But the Provost and Moniers were having none of that and wrote on 18th November 1651 to the effect that the coins made by them were checked by a variety of officials for weight and quality. They had good reasons for suggesting that the short weight was caused by people clipping or melting down the coins after it had left the Mint.

‘Now when sterling silver is as it hath been £3 3s the pound Troy, some people we conceive have melted down the currant coynes of this Nation; which ought strictly to bee prevented; For if the Market will give more for silver then the monie is coyned at the Tower, till that be prevented, and the Lawes revived against it; and to set the price of silver, as it is in other countries,  as you may see in Mr Thomas Violet's book, the rule for all great Mints in Christendom, not to exceed their Mints:  While this be done the monies will be culled and weighed, and the Mint will be obstructed; for if the State allowe the Mint to give but three pounds for sterling the pound weight Troy, and no more, and to coyn it and deliver sterling in money at three pounds two shillings the pound weight Troy, and there shall be a market amongst severall people in this Nation that will give three pound four shillings, and three pound three shillings, and three pound two shillings six pence sterling, the Mint will not be set on worke, but also your own current coyne will be culled and melted, as we humbly conceive hath beene, and so the stock of this Nation will be wasted and decayed.’

They referred to Peter Blondeau as ‘this most ignorant fellow’ and (he) ‘sheweth ... ignorance and impudence - he may have skill in making a Jack for a Kitchin, but none of the Mint’s business’ and suggested that what Peter Blondeau had said was he was an expert at clipping which was against the law and in some countries was penalised with death. They obviously had contempt for him and suggested that this might have been the reason he was ‘run out of France into England’.

 ‘Then we humbly say, he is fitter for Newgate than to be employed in the Mint of this Nation.’ This letter was signed by, amongst others, Symon Corbet, Provost, John Benfeild, David Rammage, John Corbet, Symon Corbet, Junior, Daniel Benfeild, Thomas Garnett, Michael Garnet.

Two libels against the Corporation of Moneyers in the Mint were then published by Peter Blondeau  ‘touching severall disorders hapning by Money ill-favouredly coyned and the only means to prevent them’.

Master Thomas Violet (whose name also appears in the letter of 18 November 1651) sent a letter dated 25 January 1652 to John Benfield (probably the son of the earlier John Benfield), Clerk of the Corporation of Moniers in the Tower of London in which he supported the moniers and suggested that a reply was necessary. Regarding Blondeau he wrote ‘I never met with so impudent a lying fellow in my life as this frenchman is’ and ‘it was a shame to all the officers that such a fellow should be suffered to proceed as he did, and no legal course to be taken with him.’  He signed the letter ‘I Remaine your loving Frend‘.

The Monyers replied on 27 January 1652 with ‘The Answer of The Corporation of Moniers in the Mint …’ and sent it to Thomas Violet asking him to present their petition to the Committee of the Mint.

The monyers of the Mint then discovered that the Committee could not (or would not) understand their letter and to answer the untruths put out by Peter Blondeau the monyers set their case before the public by publishing all the papers presented to the Committee  ‘and leave it to the world to judge‘.

Peter Blondeau had suggested ‘That our Corporation is now but of thirty Fellows or Masters, who are all rich and have lands or houses and other waies of maintenance without the work of the Mint; and when the State hath much monie to coyn they were wont to hire some journy-men at 18d, 15d and 12d for half a dayes work.’

But the monyers at the Mint were ready with the answer ‘… to this great untruth, Wee can speak it with a great grief, that almost twenty of our Fellows are fallen to so great decay, that both themselves and families are brought to great distress and poverty for want of imployment in the Mint, they all of them have been bound Apprentices for the least seven years to this Trade, and having no other calling or way to get their living but only upon the mystery and way of making monies: many of them that are fellow Moniers having no other subsistence then what we of the Corporation amongst our selves collect for them, to keep them from starving: And that this is true, we can produce hundreds of witnesses; and many of us finde it to our unsupportable charge, we thinking ourselves bound in conscience not to see our fellow Moniers perish for want of food and clothes.' There followed a list of  Fellows, Workmen and Laborers who worked at the Mint on 27 January 1652, ‘and sometimes we imply four times as many Laborers’.

Amongst those who signed were Fellows: Symon Corbet, Provost, Michael Garnett, Thomas Garnet, Gabriel Benfeild, John Benfeild, John Corbet, Garnet Corbet, Symon Corbet, junior, Daniel Benfeild.  From the names listed one can see that one way or another they were all related.

Simon the Younger died in 1655 (St John, Hackney burials register: Symon Corbett sonne of Symon Corbet Senr died in North Street and was buried from Mare Street ye 22nd of February 1655. (This would be 1655/6).)

The following year Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector, ordered the minting of coins bearing his portrait and these were produced on Peter Blondeau’s machines from designs by Thomas Simon (also known as Thomas Symonds).

But Peter Blondeau was unwilling to share with the monyers at the Mint the mill and screw method by which his machines produced coins with edge writing and he made the mistake of removing his machines to a private house in the Strand and continued to produce proof pieces. This was illegal and the monyers at the Mint brought a charge of treason against him for coining in a private house and he was driven from the kingdom. However he was invited back in 1662 and was made engineer to the Mint with a 21 year patent on his method.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) mentions Blondeau in his Diary entry of 19th February 1661 ‘… we met with Mr. Slingsby, that was formerly a great friend of Monsieur Blondeau, who showed me the stamps of the King's new coyne; which is strange to see, how good they are in the stamp and bad in the money, for lack of skill to make them. But he says Blondeau will shortly come over, and then we shall have it better, and the best in the world …’