Stuart Devlin works on a plaster design for the 20-cent coin; courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
In 1966 decimal currency was introduced in Australia, including coins featuring the designs of artist Stuart Devlin.
For much of the twentieth century Australia used an imperial system of currency inherited from Great Britain. After decades of consideration, the Australian government announced in 1963 that the nation would adopt the decimal system.
This change was an opportunity to pursue a distinct identity on the world stage. The design of the Coat of Arms on the highest denomination coin, the 50-cent piece, was considered particularly important as a prestigious introduction to Australia’s new, modern outlook.
The history of the Australian coin
Prior to Federation in 1901 early settlers and colonists used a mix of international coins, tokens, and the bartering of other goods for currency. In 1825, the British government made the English pound the only form of legal currency in all the Australian colonies.
After Federation in 1901, Australia’s Constitution gave Parliament the power to make laws about currency, coinage and legal tender. Adoption of decimal coinage was recommended by a House of Representatives Select Committee as early as 1902. However, the Government considered this change would be of little benefit if decimal coinage was not first adopted in the United Kingdom. For this reason the new national currency first issued by Treasury in 1910, the Australian Pound, was based on the imperial system of pounds, shillings and pence.
In 1935 the government of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons set up the first major inquiry into Australia’s banking and monetary systems, including a consideration of decimalisation. In 1937 a Royal Commission recommended the conversion to decimalisation because it was a simpler system that would improve economic efficiency.
In the 1958 election campaign Robert Menzies promised to consider converting to the decimal system, and in 1959 Menzies’ government Treasurer Harold Holt appointed a Decimal Currency Committee. The Committee recommended the decimal system for a variety of reasons. A key argument was that the introduction of decimal currency would be significant in the development of Australia’s post-war national identity and economic independence. At this time Australia was broadening its trade relationships with nations other than Britain, including other European nations, some Asian nations and the United States, which all used decimal currency, as most of the world did. The cost of converting pounds to dollars, and vice versa, was affecting national productivity in industry and commerce. Having decimal currency meant that Australia would keep up with its trading partners.
This recommendation was widely supported, and in 1963 the government announced that Australia would convert to the decimal system. To produce the new decimal coins, the Royal Australian Mint was built in the Canberra suburb of Deakin. It was opened by His Royal Highness Prince Philip on 2 February 1965.
His Royal Highness Prince Philip opening the Royal Australian Mint, 1965; courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
On 14 February 1966 Australia converted to the decimal system.
According to the Royal Australian Mint,
Since then [the Mint] has produced more than fifteen billion circulating coins. It now has the capacity to produce two million coins per day.
You can find out more about the history of currency in Australia at the Royal Australian Mint.
The 1966 coin design
In 1963 a competition of six artists was convened to design the reverse or ‘tail’ side of the new decimal coins. One artist was a young designer named Stuart Devlin. Another was Gordon Andrews, who would go on to design the Australian dollar banknotes as well as the Coat of Arms for the House of Representatives Chamber at Parliament House.
The artists developed their designs and sculpted them into plasticine and plaster. They met monthly with the judges to share ideas and criticisms. Devlin’s initial designs, which featured depictions of Australian industry, were rejected. He then decided to create a series of designs of Australian fauna which linked to the kangaroo and emu on the Coat of Arms on the 50-cent piece. He believed that the unique and distinctive animals would be meaningful to the public and give people a sense of what Australia was like. Devlin impressed the group with his plaster moulds, which he carefully sculpted to give the animals a sense of movement.
Devlin told The Age newspaper on 8 August 1964,
Australia’s growing up and becoming more sophisticated … We mustn’t look upon our coins as a kind of national advertising, but rather as a reflection of our cultural spirit.
The Age also reported on 8 August 1964 that then Prime Minister Harold Holt described the coins as a ‘family’ of Australian motifs, and that they would become for many non-Australians their first impression of Australian fauna.
In accordance with the Currency Act 1965, the obverse or ‘head’ side of the coin had to be an effigy of the reigning monarch. In 1966 Arnold Machin designed the effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for the new coins. There have been several iterations since, including the 1985 issue designed by Raphael Maklouf and the 1988 issue designed by Ian Rank-Broadley.
On 14 February 1966, when Australia converted to the new decimal currency, the world got to see Devlin’s designs. Most of them are still in circulation today.
The one-cent coin featured a design of a feather-tailed glider. The two-cent coin featured a frill-necked lizard design. Due to inflation reducing the value of the coins, and the high cost of bronze, they were withdrawn from circulation in 1992. Many of the coins were melted down to create the bronze medals awarded at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
Courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
The design of the five-cent coin features an echidna.
Courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
The design of the five-cent coin features an echidna.
Courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
The design of the five-cent coin features an echidna.
Courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
The 50-cent Australian Coat of Arms
Courtesy of the Royal Australian Mint.
For the 50-cent coin, Devlin designed what is now one of the most well-known representations of the Australian Coat of Arms.
One of Devlin’s key challenges was to reinterpret the Coat of Arms without changing its meanings. The positioning of the kangaroo and emu supporting the shield within a circle was difficult. Devlin fitted these two triangular-shaped animals into a circle by bending the Coat of Arms into a convex curve, so that the kangaroo’s tail recedes along the edge. With the animals now appearing to be moving forward, towards the viewer, and swirling ribbons replacing the wattle featured on the traditional Coat of Arms, Devlin’s design suggests the vitality and progress of the modern nation.
The original 50-cent coin was circular and composed of 80 per cent silver and 20 per cent copper. It was easily confused with the 20-cent piece, especially by people with impaired vision. In 1967, after the price of silver rose above the coin’s face value, the Royal Australian Mint suspended production. Devlin adjusted his original design and in 1969 the 50-cent coin was re-issued composed of copper–nickel in in its now standard dodecagonal (12-sided) shape.
The design process familiarised Devlin with the specifications of the use of the Coat of Arms as set out in The Armorial Ensigns of the Commonwealth of Australia. Due to this expertise, in the 1980s he was commissioned to advise the artists designing the four key Coats of Arms for new Parliament House.
The dollar coins
Devlin’s association with Australia’s currency design did not end in 1966. He also designed Australia’s first one-dollar coin, introduced in 1984 to replace the highly used and short-lived paper notes. His depiction of five kangaroos in motion added to his ‘family’ of Australian animal designs.
Stuart Devlin AO CMG
Stuart Devlin (1931–2018), born in Geelong, was an internationally renowned metalworker and designer. His designing credits are creatively varied, from furniture, jewellery and surgical instruments to ceremonial maces and coins. Devlin began studying art at the Gordon Institute of Technology before obtaining a post at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where he studied gold and silversmithing. He moved on scholarship to London in 1958 to study at the Royal College of Art. He returned briefly to Melbourne in 1964 to teach. After designing the Australian decimal coins, he returned to London in 1965 to open a workshop. In 1965 and 1969 he designed the Order of Australia medals, in 1982 a series of Defence Force Service Awards, and in 2000 the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic medals and coin series. In 1980 Devlin was appointed Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s official Goldsmith and Jeweller. In 1988 he was awarded an Order of Australia and in 2000 an Honorary Doctorate at RMIT University. He was commissioned internationally for many significant metal pieces and designed the coinage for 36 nations.