The Berwick Coins

Located on the border between England and Scotland, Berwick-on-Tweed has frequently changed hands when conflict has arisen between the two countries. Edward I had taken Berwick from the Scots in 1296, but it was recaptured in 1318 during the reign of Edward II, following a lengthy siege after his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. The town was held by the Scots until it was recaptured by Edward III in 1333. Thereafter, it remained under English jurisdiction until 1461, when it was ceded back to Scotland. In the period between 1296 and 1318, the town operated as an English mint, striking a considerable number of pennies, halfpennies and farthings. However, due to the logistics associated with its location, dies for the vast majority of Berwick's coins were made locally, rather than being supplied from London. After its recapture by Edward III, the town once again struck the same denominations between 1333 and c.1344. Like their predecessors, these coins were struck from locally made dies, which do not conform to the classification system applicable to the remainder of the Edwardian coinage. The farthings of this latter period are the subject of this section.

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The seminal classification of the Berwick coinage is a paper by C E Blunt in the Numismatic Chronicle of 1931 entitled, The Mint of Berwick-on-Tweed under Edward I, II and III. In this work the three denominations are assigned to one of eight Berwick classes, some of which are subdivided using suffixes (a) to (c). This classification stood the test of time remarkably well, and appears virtually unchanged in volume two of the third edition of J J North's English Hammered Coinage, published in 1991. However, the development of the metal-detecting hobby since the 1970s has resulted in progressively more coins being made available for study, and this is particularly the case with halfpennies and farthings. Taking advantage of this new material, P and B R Withers developed a new and extended classification of all the Berwick coins. This is incorporated in their 2006 publication, The Galata Guide to The Pennies of Edward I and II, as a separate section entitled Coins of the Mint of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The principal type numbers used in the present article reflect those of the Withers classification with the same caveats expressed in the introduction to the classification of the main series.