Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 14, 2024
Sir Charles William Fremantle (1834 – 1914) was a British official who served 26 years as deputy master of the Royal Mint, and for most of that time, as its executive head. Educated at Eton College, he served as private secretary to several officials, lastly Benjamin Disraeli, including while Disraeli was prime minister in 1868. Disraeli appointed him as deputy to Thomas Graham, the master of the Mint. Graham died in September 1869, and the Treasury decided the mastership should go to the chancellor of the exchequer of the day, with the deputy master the head of the Royal Mint. Fremantle began work to modernise the antiquated Royal Mint. Fremantle sought to beautify the coinage and, believing the Mint's engraver, Leonard Charles Wyon, not up to the task, sought to do so by resurrecting classic coin designs, like Benedetto Pistrucci's depiction of Saint George and the Dragon for the sovereign. In 1894, at the age of sixty, Fremantle retired from the Royal Mint. (Full article...)