Royal Mint was historically part of a series of mints that became centralised to produce coins for the Kingdom of England, all of Great Britain and eventually most of the British Empire. The original London mint from which the Royal Mint is the successor, was established in 886 AD and operated within the Tower of London for approximately 800 years before moving to what is now called Royal Mint Court where it remained until the 1960s. As Britain followed the rest of the world in decimalising its currency, the Mint moved from London to a new plant in Llantrisant, Wales where it
Royal Mint was worth just 13.5d compared to an English mark which was worth 6s 8d. To bridge the difference between the values, unofficial supplementary token coins, often made from lead were made by unauthorised minters across the country. By 1612 there were 3,000 such unlicensed mints producing these tokens, none of whom paying anything towards the crown. "The Royal Mint", not wanting to divert manpower away from minting more profitable gold and silver, hired outside agent Lord Harington who under licence started issuing copper farthings in 1613. Private licenses to mint these coins were revoked in 1644 which led traders to