280-318 WILLIAM STREET
The Former Royal Mint was once the Victorian Branch of the British Royal Mint. It was built between 1869-72 and designed by JJ Clark. The main administration building and residence, two gatehouses and the perimeter walls and fences are all that remains of a large complex of buildings. The minting works were demolished in 1968 when the Mint closed. The main building was designed in a restrained yet elegant adaptation of plans developed at the Royal Mint, London. Modelled on Raphael's sixteenth century Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli in Rome, the administration block continues the Victorian Public Works Department's partiality for the Italian Renaissance and again demonstrates Clark's considerable ability with the style.
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| Royal Mint, c. 1880. (Image: Royal Historical Society of Victoria) |
The Royal Mint bought gold from the Victorian goldfields and minted sovereigns in its capacity as a branch of the British Royal Mint. In 1901 the Commonwealth Government was empowered to make laws with respect to coinage, however the first federally commissioned coins were not issued until 1910, and they were minted in Britain. Until then only English coins were legal tender in Australia. Production of Australian coinage started at the Royal Mint in Melbourne when silver coins were minted in 1916 bearing the bust of King Edward VII on one side and the Australian Coat of Arms on the reverse. Bronze pennies and halfpennies were issued the following year.
The Coat of Arms, like the designs for the first Australian stamps, received some criticism from those who felt they knew something about art and design:
"nothing could be worse in motive or less dignified in effect than the atrocity which is stamped on our silver coinage…" "Putting on one side the bad drawing both of the kangaroo and emu, the tail of the kangaroo (which before was kinked) has been straightened out, and is evidently kept in position by either glue or string, to a twig of wattle. The idea of the supporting beast and bird, standing on a few scrolled pieces of wattle bough, is ludicrous in the extreme. Why a solitary star is fixed in the firmament, and how it is supported, we cannot imagine. If this is the best Australia can do in the way of design we suspect folk abroad will have a poor opinion of our 'art.'"
Until recently the former Royal Mint was used by the Victorian Government as the Marriage Registry Office. It is now leased privately.