BARNSTAPLE
SHILLING 
BARNSTAPLE
SHILLING
Immediately following the traditional ceremony of Mayor Making (where the old Mayor and the new Mayor exchange The Mayoral chain of Office) the mayor of Barnstaple visits the elderly in the almshouses and distributes the Barnstaple Shilling.
The tradition whereby the Mayor of Barnstaple presents coins to the inhabitants of the almshouses and residential homes in the town soon after he has been elected to office probably has its origins in the will of Henry Gardner Tippett who died in 1795.
In his will Tippett arranged for the rent from some land called Hole Ground to be given to the poor in the almshouses at Christmas. Originally the vicar of Barnstaple arranged the distribution of this money but the Charity Commissioners reported in 1826 that this duty was being carried out by the Town Clerk. In the 1930's Mr S Bembridge, who then owned Hole Ground, declined to pay the rent charges stating that they were void under the Statute of Mortmain.
Henry Tippett's benevolent intentions may have been frustrated but the tradition of presenting coins to the almshouse residents has continued, albeit in a different form, to the present day. Now it is the Mayor who distributes the coins. A sixpence used to be given but following the introduction of decimalisation and the later withdrawl of that coin a five-pence piece was used.
For the visits to the almshouses and the presentations made in 1984 it was not possible to obtain the new five-pence coins from the bank. It was thought that the tradition could be in danger of dying out because the presentation of a low value coin, which had already been in circulation, held no particular signifance to the recipient. This problem was considered by the Town Council early in 1985 and it was decided to produce a special commemorative coin for this presentation.
Design
The chosen design of the coin was to incorporate the Town's seal on one side and the Mayor's seal on the other.
The coin was to be called the Barnstaple Shilling as the previously presented coin was the successor to the shilling and by choosing the name of the obsolete coin the antiquity of the custom would be emphasised. A coin producing company was selected and sent copies of the two seals and within a very short time the designers had produced the required design. The order was placed and the coins arrived in time for the 1985's election ceremony. That year they were presented not only to the almshouse residents but to all those aged sixty years and over who attended the Mayor Making Ceremony at the Barnstaple Guildhall.
Physical Properties
The main attractions of the coin apart from its uniqueness, are its physical properties. The size and colour of a rounded fifty pence coin, it resembles in many ways the old half crown. The shilling is finished with a high polish which adds greatly to its appearance. On one side of the coin is the castle which is the authorised town seal, with the motto Fides et Justica (Faith and Justice) below it. The obverse shows the aggressive swan of the Mayors seal with the inscription Sigil Senat Municipalis Apud Barumenses (Seal of the Municipal Senate of Barum) around the periphery and the date 1836 at the bottom. This is the date of the Municipality Act which authorised the use of the seal. As the date is part of the Mayors seal and therefore included on the shilling no year date was shown on the early coins. However the date has been included on all the coins produced since 1989 as it was considered that its inclusion would make a more significant memento.