Joshua Payne designs Adelaide pound: first Australian-made coins, from South Australians' gold found in Victoria

Joshua Payne, engraver and die caster, who designed the Adelaide pound coins, produced urgently in 1852 at the South Australian government assay office from gold sent back by South Australian prospectors in Victoria.
1840 Joshua Payne image by Daniel Byrne, courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Joshua Payne’s most historically significant work came in 1852 when, under pressure, he designed the dies for the first Australian-made coins in Adelaide. the £1 and £5 gold coins minted in 1852 at the South Australian government treasury’s assay office in an urgent bid to rescue the colony from threat of bankrupty.

The currency that South Australia produced was technically illegal as it hadn’t been approved in British government but saved it the colony from bankruptcy.  South Australia’s 1840s copper boom had been interrupted dramatically in 1851 by gold being discovered in Victoria. One third of South Australia’s men rushed off, taking a huge amount of gold sovereigns, causing a run on South Australian banks and hitting the economy.

The urgent South Australian government rescue mission, unable to wait for the OK from Britain, involved setting a price of £3/11/- an ounce for gold dust, more than the Victorian rate, for all gold sent back to the colony by South Australian prospectors. A monthly armed escort under zealous police inspector Alexander Tolmer was set up to bring the gold from Victoria. The first escort arrived at the government treasury building in Flinders Street, Adelaide city, in 1852.

To deal with the incoming gold, the South Australian government – at that stage, only operating with a Legislative Council – acted urgently passed the Bullion Act No.1 in January 28, 1852.  Thirteen days later, on February 10, 1852, the government assay office was opened at the treasury building. The assay office was effectively Australia's first mint. Its sole purpose was to assay gold nuggets brought from the Victorian goldfields and to reshape them into ingots. The assay office melted and purified each prospector’s gold into a ingot stamped only with its weight. The banks issued certificates for the ingots as legal tender for 12 months.

To fix issues with the unpopular ingots, the Bullion Act was amended nine months after it was passed (leaving only three months before it expired) to allow 10 shilling and £1, £2 and £5 gold pieces to be struck by the assay office.

The office fortunately had engraver and die sinker Joshua Payne, only arrived in the colony in 1849, to do the intricate designs of the coins. In the rush to produce them, the first designs failed, with around 50 to 100 coins having a severe die crack on the reverse side. A new die quickly replaced it. Within a week, 600 gold Adelaide pounds had been delivered to the South Australian Banking Company and 100 sent to London.

Adelaide Pound Type II had 24,648 copies struck but it’s believed only a small percentage circulated as it was found soon that the coins had almost two shillings of intrinsic gold value above the £1 and were withdrawn and or melted by profiteers or official decree. The remaining Adelaide pounds continued to be sought worldwide for their rarity but also the story behind them.

Joshua Payne continued to contributed to early Australian colonial design. The Argus newspaper in1853 commented on the examples of “good heraldic engraving” that Payne submitted to the Victorian Industrial Society exhibition that year. Payne’s work also encompassed drawing and he had entries in the 1863 South Australian Society of Arts exhibition. In the 1870s, he also published a short-lived comic newspaper, the Mirror.