{"id":376157,"date":"2026-09-10T09:16:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/?p=376157"},"modified":"2026-09-10T09:16:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:16:37","slug":"british-entrepreneur-purchases-lundy-in-1925-initiates-self-rule-and-produces-stamps-and-currency-resulting-in-legal-proceedings-by-the-uk-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/?p=376157","title":{"rendered":"British entrepreneur purchases Lundy in 1925, initiates self-rule and produces stamps and currency, resulting in legal proceedings by the UK government."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hold a 1929 puffin in your hand and it resembles an old penny, right down to its weight. Flip it over and a seabird is perched on a rock. Flip it back and a regular citizen stands where King George V should be.<\/p>\n

That final detail is what led the individual to court.<\/p>\n

The financier who purchased a rock<\/h2>\n

Martin Coles Harman was a financier from London with a sense of romance. He first visited Lundy in 1903 as an eighteen-year-old day tripper, and family lore recounts him promising on the return trip that he would own it someday. Twenty-two years later, in 1925, he did acquire it. The Landmark Trust\u2019s account of his ownership<\/a> cites the price at just over \u00a325,000, which included the supply vessel, the Lerina.<\/p>\n

His perspective on the area was broad. As the Lundy Field Society\u2019s description of the Harman era<\/a> states, he regarded the island as \u201ca self-governing dominion of the British Empire recognizing King George as its head.\u201d The daily management of the island was entrusted to his agent, a childhood friend who resided there for years while Harman managed his enterprises in London.<\/p>\n

The post office closes<\/h2>\n

Complications arose with the mail. The General Post Office shut down its Lundy sub-post office in 1928, and for a period, Harman personally transported the mail and absorbed the cost. As the trust\u2019s page on the Lundy post<\/a> indicates, he then began issuing private stamps from November 1, 1929, featuring puffins, with a local surcharge informally termed puffinage. These needed to be affixed to the back of the envelope to prevent anyone from mistaking them for Royal Mail.<\/p>\n

The artwork had a clever touch. Linn\u2019s Stamp News<\/a> observes that the half puffin stamp depicted precisely half a bird, cropped at the shoulders.<\/p>\n

Then he minted currency<\/h2>\n

Stamps were a private matter. Coins were a declaration.<\/p>\n

In 1929, a Birmingham mint produced bronze puffins and half puffins for him. They were the same size and value as the penny and halfpenny, with LUNDY LIGHTS AND LEADS inscribed around the edge as a tribute to the island\u2019s two lighthouses. The trade site CoinSite<\/a> estimates the mintage of the 1929 half puffin at 50,000, indicating that these were not simply decorative items. Islanders used them.<\/p>\n

Parliament had considered such matters sixty years prior. Section 5 of the Coinage Act 1870<\/a> prohibited any metal, regardless of value, from being created or issued as a coin or token for money except by the Mint, imposing a fine of up to \u00a320 on anyone who attempted it. The phrasing leaves no room for a hobbyist kingdom.<\/p>\n

The prosecution and the penalty<\/h2>\n

The accusation was that Harman had illegally issued metal as currency, violating that section. He contested it, but lost and escalated the argument to the High Court.<\/p>\n

In the King\u2019s Bench Division, Time reported<\/a> that Mr. Justice Avory scrutinized the defendant and inquired about who Harman had declared as \u201cthe sovereign of Lundy Island.\u201d Harman replied that he was, claiming that minting his own money accompanied that title. His counsel further argued that the 1,150-acre island existed beyond the British domain, and apart from the rest of the world as well.<\/p>\n

Judges typically do not respond favorably to that reasoning.<\/p>\n

Harman was found guilty in 1931 and fined \u00a35 plus fifteen guineas in costs, and the coins were recalled, as per the Landmark Trust<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hold a 1929 puffin in your hand and it resembles an old penny, right down to its weight. Flip it over and a seabird is perched on a rock. Flip it back and a regular citizen stands where King George V should be. That final detail is what led the individual to court. The financier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":376158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-376157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-source-scienceblog-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/376158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}