Richard Trevithick -- a possible inspiration for Dick Simnel (in Raising Steam)?

[RathDarkblade]

I believe I may have just come across a piece of serendipity. As you know, in "Raising Steam", Dick Simnel builds his own train and rides it around a circular track in A-M.

Anyway, I'm reading a guide to England during the Regency, and came across this interesting bit:

In 1801 in Cornwall, a man called Richard Trevithick cracked the problem and built the world's first steam locomotive, Puffing Devil. Four years later, one of his engines hauled 10 tons of iron and a number of men for 10 miles in Penydarren in South Wales. Then in 1808, to the north of London, Trevithick did exactly the same thing as Dick Simnel: he built a circular track for demonstration rides, stoked up his second locomotive (called Catch-me-who-can). Rides cost one shilling per head.

Within six years, steam trains were employed at collieries in the Newcastle area. By the end of the Regency (1830), they were drawing passengers too.

Anyway, I'm sorry if you already knew all this. I didn't, so I thought I'd share.

 

[Tonyblack]

Yes, I believe there is a monument to him in Merthyr Tydfil.

Incidentally, Ned's mention of his workshop in Swinetown is a nod to Swindon, which had a huge locomotive factory. Swindon's name was originally Swinetown.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Oh? *curious* I've heard of the Swinetown/Swindon relationship, but why was Swindon originally called Swinetown, Tony?

 

[Tonyblack]

English place names have changed or the spelling has been butchered. At one stage it was probably called Swinetown because there were lots of pigs there. Or maybe it meant something completely different. Spelling was optional for those that could write and the majority couldn't. Here's a section from the Swindon Wiki:

The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Swindon sat in a defensible position atop a limestone hill. It is referred to in the 1086 Domesday Book as Suindune,[4] believed to be derived from the Old English words "swine" and "dun" meaning "pig hill" or possibly Sweyn's hill, Sweyn being a Scandinavian name akin to Sven and English swain, meaning a young man.

Swindon is recorded in the Domesday Book as a manor in the hundred of Blagrove, Wiltshire. It was one of the larger manors, recorded as having 27 households and a rent value of £10 14s, which was divided among five landlords.[4] Before the Battle of Hastings the Swindon estate was owned by an Anglo-Saxon thane called Leofgeat.[5] After the Norman Conquest, Swindon was split into five holdings: the largest was held between Miles Crispin and Odin the Chamberlain,[4] and the second by Wadard, a knight in the service of Odo of Bayeux, brother of the king.[6] The manors of Westlecot, Walcot, Rodbourne, Moredon and Stratton are also listed; all are now part of Swindon.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Interesting. I didn't think of the swine/Sweyn connection, but it's definitely possible.

Love the name "Odin the Chamberlain".

By the way, I note the use of shillings. I know shillings aren't used any more, obviously, but I'm just curious because I'm currently reading a book about England during the Regency. Of course, the book uses Pounds, shillings, pence, and something called a "guinea" (£1 1s). Is a guinea the same thing as a "sovereign"? I looked up the "Sovereign" coin , and apparently it's worth £1. But when I visited the UK a few years ago, I didn't see a "sovereign" anywhere.

I'm also curious because, in one of Oscar Wilde's short stories ("The Model Millionaire"), the protagonist talks to his friend, a painter, who mentions that for his painting he gets "two thousand guineas". Yet later on, the protagonist feels sorry for the model (an old beggar), and gives him a sovereign.

If these two are the same, why use both "guinea" and "sovereign"? Any ideas?

 

[Tonyblack]

Sovereigns were generally made of gold. So, although the face value was £1, they were probably worth a lot more. These days they tend to fall into the category of special Mint coins. They are still minted today and, although the face value is £1, they would cost a lot more to buy from the Mint.

 

[=Tamar]

Regency! The old coins worth a pound turned out, in the 18th century, to have been made from purer gold than had been intended, so they were actually worth 21 shillings instead of 20. So, since the gold had come from Guinea, they were called guineas. Things were still priced in pounds for ordinary folk who had to scrape up 20 shillings at a time, but rich people were told prices in guineas, partly because it was a nuisance to make change later in the century due to a silver shortage. Then in the early Regency era, money had become such a mess - what with towns illegally minting their own local small change because of the coin shortage, and counterfeiting rampant because all the real coins were so worn out that they were like blanks anyway - the government minted a whole bunch of new "pound" coins with a portrait of the monarch on them. Since that was the easy way to tell them apart from the guineas, they were called 'sovereigns. I'm pretty sure this was after Napoleon was defeated so the government had money available and could mint all new coinage, even the smaller silver coins.
Short answer: sovereigns were worth twenty shillings, guineas were worth twenty-one shillings. Both were gold.

 

[Tonyblack]

I can still vaguely remember items on TV being advertised as "Only 20 Guineas". It was the £20.99 of its day.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm, OK. That makes sense. Thanks, Tony and =Tamar!

One last question: if a sovereign was worth a Pound, why have both sovereign coins and Pound coins? Aren't they the same?

 

[Tonyblack]

Because a Pound coin is made of base metal and is worth a Pound, whereas a Sovereign, which may have once been worth a Pound, is made of gold and therefore the value fluctuates depending on the current value of gold. A 2020 Sovereign would currently cost around £346. People buy them as an investment.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm, OK. That makes sense.

This confuses me (from wikipedia): "Although the sovereign is no longer in circulation, it is still legal tender in the United Kingdom."

It may be legal tender, but given how much a Sovereign is worth (£346 is AUD $626.35), why would anyone take it to the shops and spend it? It sounds like a bone-headed thing to do.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Rath!. just to confuse you further.

Scotland
No banknotes are legal tender in Scotland.[42] Scottish banknotes are legal currency, however are not legal tender anywhere in the UK
Scottish notes are printed by the three main banks in Scotland.

While the English notes are printed at the Royal Mint now located in Wales, used to be in London.

Royal Mint is at Llantrisant, some 10 miles from Cardiff,

 

[Tonyblack]

There was a question on University Challenge: What Welsh town is known as "The hole with the mint?"

 

[Tonyblack]

Also Dug - Scottish notes were/are legal tender in the rest of the UK - it was just a case that shop keepers would panic if they were presented with Scottish banknotes. I used to work in the cash department of the Post Office

 

[=Tamar]

Way back when, I observed that some English people were very confused about Scottish pound coins too. Oddly, it went the other way - they thought the coins were worth far more than a pound and kept trying to give me change from a 1ukp purchase.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Also Dug - Scottish notes were/are legal tender in the rest of the UK - it was just a case that shop keepers would panic if they were presented with Scottish banknotes. I used to work in the cash department of the Post Office

Legal currency! Tony not legal tender, slight difference which can cause quite a bit of confusion.
Scottish banknotes are unusual, first because they are issued by retail banks, not government central banks, and second, because they are technically not legal tender anywhere in the United Kingdom – not even in Scotland.[2][3] As such, they are classified as promissory notes, and the law requires that the issuing banks hold a sum of Bank of England banknotes or gold equivalent to the total value of notes issued.[4]
And if independence becomes fact for Scotland that will be no longer the case I presume.

 

[Tonyblack]

Thanks for the clarification, Dug.

 

[RathDarkblade]

That seems crazy. So ... if a Scottish bank gives me a Scottish banknote, I can't go out and spend it in a Scottish shop? What's the point of having Scottish banknotes at all, if I have to go back to the bank and exchange it for English ones?

Maybe I misunderstood this, but that's what it sounds like to me...

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Yes you can spend it anywhere Rath, it is just an old statute law that was never repealed by the English government/parliament. Reread my post it states it's a legal currency but not legal tender.
That should be clear as Scottish mist on a foggy morning.

 

[Tonyblack]

This also works for notes from Northern Ireland, The Channel Islands etc.