People

Benedetto Pistrucci

One of the Royal Mint’s most famous artists and engravers, Benedetto Pistrucci, was born in Rome in 1783. He came to work at the Mint in London shortly after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and produced some of the most celebrated medal designs in the Royal Mints history.

Pistrucci is said to have been a very difficult character but was incredibly talented as an engraver. One of his most famous designs is that of George and the Dragon which was for the reverse (tails) side of a gold coin called a sovereign. Though this was created in 1817, it is still used for sovereigns today.

John (Johann) Sigismund Tanner

John Sigismund Tanner was born in Saxe-Coburg, now Bavaria in Germany, in 1704. He was a skilled engraver who worked on small items, such as snuff boxes and gun locks. He came to England in around 1726 where he started to take on work from the Royal Mint, later becoming assistant to the Mint’s chief engraver. He engraved dies which are tools used to make coins. He was given the post of chief engraver after the death of the previous chief.

Tanner lived in the Chief Engravers residence at the Tower of London which is where the Royal Mint was based at the time. By 1768 his eyesight began to fail which was a problem as engraving was very detailed work. He retired, moved out of the Tower and was given a pension of £200 a year to live on, this was a lot of money at the time.

Harry Cumberbatch

In 1964 Harry was recruited in Barbados by London Transport to work on the buses. While on the buses he joined the Territorial Army 4th Battalion Royal Green Jackets reserves. This experience helped in getting his next job as a chauffeur for the Director of the Royal Mint, Sir Jack James.

Read Harry's story

Chikako Tamamushi

I was born in Akita, North Japan and then when I was just a year old, my family and I moved to Niigata, another city in North Japan. Dad was sales director of a civil engineering company and it’s common in Japan for companies to re-locate their staff and their families to different places. We moved a few times and then back to Niigata when I was 12 where we stayed till I finished school. Then I moved to near Tokyo and went to university, where I studied design. I always wanted to be a landscape designer as I love the ‘English garden’ design theme.

When I was in university, I saw an advertisement for a trip to Britain to learn English and thought it might help me in my design work. I saved up my money and my parents helped me to book my place and I was placed with a host family in Salisbury, Wiltshire for three weeks to learn to speak English. It was my first time abroad and I was excited to meet many other foreign students from lots of other countries. The trip changed my life! The family I was placed with became my “English family” as Don and Jane accepted me as if I was one of their own children. We are still part of each other’s lives today.

After university, in 1998, I made the decision to return to the UK to carry on learning English and chose Cardiff! My plan was just to stay for 2 years. But I met my husband! We got married in 2001, I got a job in a Japanese company in Bridgend in the same year and worked there for 4 years, took a new role at a local company in Swansea for 3 and half years then got a job in a manufacturing company in Llantrisant. When I turned 40, I wanted to do something more interesting, and realised that I had been driving past The Royal Mint for many years so I started to look to work at the site. In 2016 I was lucky enough to be accepted to work in the Precious Metals division, my role was managing key distributors across the globe. I have since moved on to a different role looking after the Mints’ long-standing customers, which I love!

Inga Doak

Growing up on a sheep farm in the Australian outback I had read about other people crossing to and from the continent I called home (also the 2nd most sparsely populated continent after Antarctica!). But it wasn't until I had left school, completed university, and started working that I became a cross-continental explorer myself - arriving in London in my late 20s, ready to experience the challenges and rewards of living and working in a different country. Not content with just the UK however, I then sampled working life in Ireland, Finland and Germany: all part of the same continent (Europe) but very different countries! I am back in the UK now and due to some good timing and a little bit of luck, I am happily working at The Royal Mint. Which funnily enough once had subsidiary Mints operating in…you guessed it….Australia!