The Mint

Governor Macquarie introduced coinage to Australia, forever changing the lives of its inhabitants. Macquarie Visions will explore both this landmark achievement and the great ‘Common Wealth’ of our rich and rare nation in this display at The Mint.

When Macquarie began his tenure as Governor of NSW, rum was the prevailing currency of the colony. He not only introduced coinage, but also overcame an acute currency shortage by purchasing Spanish silver dollars, punching out the centres and creating two new coins – the ‘Holey Dollar’ and the Dump. This innovative move doubled the number of coins in circulation and increased their total worth by 25 per cent.

To facilitate trade and commerce, Macquarie also established the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) in 1817 and Elizabeth Macquarie was among its first shareholders.

The bank suffered the taunts of Macquarie’s political enemies, mainly free settlers, who did not agree with his reformist practice of placing emancipist convicts in positions of authority. Bank Director William Redfern had been transported to Australia for his role in the mutiny of the North Sea Fleet at the Nore anchorage in 1797, while fellow Director D’arcy Wentworth was tried four times, although acquitted, for highway robbery.

Many other ex-convicts were shareholders, such as Mary Reibey, who was transported at the age of 13 for being caught stealing horses dressed up as a boy, and went on to raise to the heights of respectability as a significant colonial businesswoman. You see her almost daily as she appears on the Australian $20 bill.

The Bank of New South Wales was thus nicknamed disparagingly by some as ‘the convicts’ bank’. Although with the support of the farmers, merchants, shopkeepers, mariners, soap-boilers, tanners, butchers, bakers, gardeners, cedar-gatherers and craft builders of the colony, it also acquired the more popular title of ‘the people’s bank’.

The ‘Common Wealth’ display looks at the economic and natural wealth that has been discovered, exploited and developed in Australia since the early accomplishments of Macquarie, from the gold rush to riding the sheep’s back, the farming and diamond exports to the mineral and mining booms of recent times.

News of Assistant Surveyor George William Evans’ discovery of the NSW interior eventually reaches London:

The accounts of the country in the interior are highly gratifying, and the discovery of extensive and luxuriant pastures, with a river of magnitude, can hardly fail to be most beneficial to the settlement.

- The Times, London, 8th November 1814

Venue information

Initiated by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1811, the building now known as The Mint was constructed as the southern wing of the General Hospital or “Rum Hospital”. In 1854, the site was transformed into the first overseas branch of The Royal Mint, where it operated until 1926. After occupation by numerous government departments, The Mint is now the Head Office of the Historic Houses Trust as well as housing the Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection and a range of function spaces http://www.hht.net.au.