George Augustus was King of Great Britain & Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11th June 1727 until his death on 25th October 1760.

• Both of George’s parents committed adultery
• In 1694 their marriage was dissolved on the pretext that Sophia had abandoned her husband
  • She was confined to Ahlden House and denied access to her two children,
  • George and his sister, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, probably never saw their mother again
    • George spoke only French, the language of diplomacy and the court, until the age of four
    • From 5 onwards, he was taught German by one of his tutors
    • He was also schooled in English and Italian
    • He also studied genealogy, military history and battle tactics

He was crowned shortly after the controversy (in Ireland) of Wood’s coinage.

• As king, he exercised little control over British domestic policy, which was largely controlled by the Parliament
  • history tended to view him with disdain, concentrating on his mistresses, short temper and boorishness
• He was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain
  • he was born in Hanover and brought up in northern Germany
• He was also the last British monarch to lead an army in battle
  • During the War of the Austrian Succession, George participated at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743
  • Prior to this,  in 1708, George participated in the Battle of Oudenarde with the Hanoverian cavalry
• In 1701, his grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, became second in line to the British throne after about 50 Catholics higher in line were excluded by the Act of Settlement, which restricted the succession to Protestants
  • In 1745, supporters of the Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart (“The Old Pretender”), led by James’s son Charles Edward Stuart (“The Young Pretender” or “Bonnie Prince Charlie”), attempted and failed to depose George II in the last of the Jacobite rebellions
• In 1754, hostility between France and Britain, particularly over the colonization of North America, continued
• A French invasion of the British-held island of Minorca led to the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in 1756
• Great Britain, Hanover and Prussia and their allies Hesse-Kassel and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel were pitted against other European powers, including France, Austria, Russia, Sweden and Saxony.
  • The war involved multiple theatres from Europe to North America and India, where British dominance increased with the victories of Robert Clive over French forces and their allies at the Battles of Arcot and Plassey.
  • In the annus mirabilis of 1759, British forces captured Quebec and Guadeloupe.
    • A French plan to invade Britain was defeated following naval battles at Lagos and Quiberon Bay
    • A resumed French advance on Hanover was halted by British–Hanoverian forces at the Battle of Minden

From an Irish perspective, the reign of George II was somewhat mixed :-

• 1720’s
• Many towns prospered; the cattle-market was an important source of prosperity.
  • Textiles and agricultural exports mainly went to England.
  • Linen became a huge domestic industry, dominated by Protestants.
  • Cotton villages began to appear.
• Colonial restrictions caused few problems.
  • Trading networks expanded as transport improved.
    • Despite the English tariff on Irish woollens after the boom of the 1690s, the industry diversified
    • The Ulster linen industry was born

• 1730’s
• Catholic freeholders formally lost the vote
• Anti-Catholic legislation (Penal Laws) was being pushed more by Irish Protestants than by the English
• Bad harvests saw rural destitution, but afterwards both the population and economy expanded
  • The east and south became more Anglicised and commercialised
  • A prosperous farming class developed (historians do not agree on the extent of poverty at this time)

Meanwhile, to ‘grease the cogs’ of commerce a new ‘regal’ coinage was introduced in the 1730’s following the failed recent experiment of Wood’s Hibernia coinage of the 1720’s.  At last, everyone agreed, that Ireland’s commercial future was assured.

• This coinage was produced in the London mint for use in Ireland
• The ‘quality’ is similar to that of the contemporary English halfpence and farthings
  • This must have pleased Dean Swift and his supporters
  • It still did not address the need for silver coinage in Ireland

It did, however, address the appalling amount of sub-standard un-official, private token coinages that then flooded the Irish marketplace but were not acceptable as payments outside of Ireland.  The Wood’s coinage (patent tokens) were circulating quite freely at this time, along with all of their predecessors, so the arrival of the new ‘regal’ halfpennies and farthings had an immediate effect in terms of clearing out the old tokens (incl. the Wood’s ‘patent’ halfpennies).

Aquilla Smith said

“the coinage of the fine copper halfpence by George the Second, in 1736 and 1737, and of farthings in 1737, put an end to the issue of private tokens… They were withdrawn from circulation, and full value given for them in gold or silver” … which accounts for the extreme rarity of some pre-1730’s Irish trade tokens.

He went on to add

“It is said that our good (presumably, full-weight) halfpence are carried to the West of England and to Scotland by the colliers and other dealers, which is a good trade for them, as they get thirteen pence for a shilling, which is eight and one-third (per cent) profit, so that, unless Irish halfpence are prohibited in Great Britain, we shall he constantly drained of our Copper Coin, great quantities of which are likewise exported to America.”

Could the Wood’s coinage have been exported to the America’s in this way ?

– in small quantities by emigrants, or in larger quantities via Irish and Scottish traders, operating out of ports served by emigrant ships, i.e. the emigrant ship captains could have made a tidy profit by transporting small casks of coins on every crossing. ???

Year	Type I Farthings – fine lettering	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1737		6608	557	IG2FA-005	126
1737	Proof in Copper	P6608	558	IG2FA-010	126
1737	Proof in Silver	P6608	559	IG2FA-015	126a
1738		6608	560	IG2FA-020	126

Note: The 1738 (Type I) is one of the scarcest regular issue Irish farthings.

Year	Type I Halfpenny – fine lettering	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1736		6605	538	IG2HD-005	125
1736	Proof in Copper	P6605	539	IG2HD-010	125
1736	Proof in Silver	P6605	540	IG2HD-015	125a
1737		6605	541	IG2HD-020	125
1737	Proof in Copper	P6605	–	IG2HD-025	–
1738		6605	542	IG2HD-030	125

These coins are (now) not as common as the preceeding Wood’s coinage in terms of availability to collectors and, with the exception of the 1760 issue, they are difficult to obtain in much better than Very Fine condition.  This would imply that they should be more expensive than Wood’s coinage but, since they were never ‘officially sanctioned’ for use in the American colony, they are not as widely collected and their value is low when compared with Wood’s coinage.

• 1740’s
• Where there was no varied local economy, small farmers and cottiers became dependent on pigs and potatoes.
  • Holdings tended to be let out and multiplied rather than farmed in large units
  • In the absence of political rights, a network of agrarian secret societies emerged, known as the ‘Whiteboys’
    • The Whiteboys reacted violently to taxes or the spread of the dairy economy
    • They protected the peasants from rack-renting landlords
    • They were only interested in local affairs, not national politics
    • The Irish people lived in extreme poverty but reserved their loyalties for the church and secret societies

Dublin in the 1740’s was a Protestant city, and one that was flooded with Protestant refugees fleeing oppression from Catholic France, Austria and southern Germany.  They brought with them …. skills and knowledge – in manufacturing, financial, construction and industrial technology.  These ‘dissenting‘ Protestants did not see the Church of Ireland as the only option.  Their non-conformist world included Arminians, Baptists, Bradilonians, Muggletonians, Quakers, Socinians and Unitarians,

They disrupted the establishment view – both here in Ireland and in England.  They broke the stranglehold of subservience to the established churches and liberated men to think (and act) independently of scripture.  Contrary to the view of ‘trickle down’ economics, Dublin’s great economic progression in the 18th C was due to small, self-employed businessmen, manufacturers and traders.  It had nothing to do with the ‘undertakers’ who, since the Cromwellian invasion grew wealthy by neoptism, corruption and restrictive legislation.  A healthy, self-sustaining middle class has its roots amongst the working classes.

Year	Type 2 Halfpenny  – larger lettering	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1741		6606	543	IG2HD-035	130.1
1742		6606	544	IG2HD-040	130.1
1742	Pattern with long curling hair	–	564	IG2PTN-020	Pn24
1743		6606	545	IG2HD-045	130.1
1744		6606	546	IG2HD-050	130.1
1744	over 43	6606	547	IG2HD-055	130.1
1746		6606	548	IG2HD-060	130.1

In the mid-1740’s the Royal Mint saw fit to produce a farthing dated 1744.  No other Irish Type II farthings are known to exist for George II.

Year	Type 2 Farthing – larger lettering	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1744		6609	561	IG2FA-025	131

Note: The 1744 (Type II) is one of the two scarcest regular issue Irish farthings.

In 1747, the name GEORGIUS was changed slightly to GEORGIVS (with a Roman V) – thus a third type became available to modern day collectors.

• No Irish Type III farthings are known to exist for George II..

Year	Type 3 Halfpenny	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1747		6607	549	IG2HD-065	130.2
1748		6607	550	IG2HD-070	130.2
1749		6607	551	IG2HD-075	130.2
1750		6607	552	IG2HD-080	130.2
1751		6607	553	IG2HD-085	130.2
1752		6607	554	IG2HD-090	130.2
1752	Proof in Copper	–	–	IG2HD-095	–
1753		6607	555	IG2HD-100	130.2

Note: Many catalogues (and dealers’ price lists) appear to include ‘1755’ as a legitimate date.  Recent research by John Rainey and Graham Dyer suggest that this date was not officially produced and that all of the specimens of this date (and listed in major public collections) are ‘contemprorary’ counterfeits.

• 1750’s
• Middle-class Catholics, who were still allowed to trade, emphasized their loyalty to the Crown
  • Many, in order to improve their chances, converted to Protestantism and avoided the Penal Laws
  • Some modern historians now label them ‘the Improvinatii’
    • They include :-
• The first people to talk of an Irish nation were :-
  • The recent (dissenting) Protestant settlers and converts to Protestantism (Improvinatii)
    • They were highly aspirational
    • Their culture included the literature of Swift, Sheridan, Burke and others.
    • They wanted to be treated by Britain as an equal nation
    • Jonathan Swift, Protestant dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, had (since the reign of George I) argued that “the English parliament had no right to legislate for Ireland”
      • Sadly, the Irish parliament was powerless and had little significance

By the time of George II’s death in October 1760, the Age of Enlightenment was leading towards the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the beginning of the end of the monarchy’s divine right to rule throughout Europe.  And, just before his death, there was a final (Type 4) issue of coins in the name of George II.

Year	Type 4 Farthing – Older Bust	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1760		6611	563	IG2FA-030	135

Year	Type 4 Halfpenny – Older Bust	Seaby	Dowle & Finn	Coincraft	Krause
1760		6610	562	IG2HD-110	136
1760	Proof in Copper	–	–	IG2HD-115	Pn25

The Royal Mint in London was hard-pressed to produce enough coin for England, Scotland and Wales during the reign of George II, so we do not know how many were produced for each year for Ireland.  In general, the Irish coinage of George II is very scarce in the higher grades but Type IV (1760) seems to be ‘easier to get’ than many of the other dates and types.

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