Description:Matthew Boulton lobbied for years before he was finally given the contract to produce the national coinage at the Soho Mint. These coins were known as cartwheels because of their large size and raised rim. The coins were 36mm in diameter which made them heavy but at that date they had to contain copper to the value of a penny. The Soho Mint stuck 500 tons of pennies and twopennies in 1797.
Boulton was presumably for this work in coins as he later paid James Newton for furniture in barrels of coins. No record survives of Newton's reaction to this!