Isaac Newton is quite rightly known as being one of the greatest and most important scientific thinkers in history – but given that he lived to the ripe old age of 84, and that he did the majority of his most innovative science in his youth, there are clearly large swathes of his life that are less well known than the archetypal and of course inaccurate “apple falls on his head and his discovers gravity” bit.

Newton lived through the Interregnum and the reigns of five monarchs, which is pretty impressive – and it was during the reign of William III that he found himself with a new and unusual official position. The role of Master of the Royal Mint could easily have been just a stipend for the middle-aged Newton, but at a time when the stability of English currency, inherently bound up with the value of the silver that it was in theory cast from, was under massive threat, Newton threw himself in to the role. What that mostly meant was pursuing the coin clippers and the counterfeiters who tried to undermine the currency for their own benefit. In an era before organised law enforcement, he became head of a team of informers, investigators, enforcers and bounty hunters, many of whom were little better that the villains they pursued, not to mention going out in to the city to talk to informants himself and appearing in court in the role of prosecutor; he even had himself made a Justice of the Peace in all of the counties surrounding London so he could legitimately pursue his suspects, demonstrating that he really did bring his massive brainpower to bear on the challenges of his job.

Coiners, while a menace, had  a major problem: not so much making the money, though that required confederates and resources enough, but passing it in to circulation – and almost always tripped up in the end, betrayed by accomplices at the sharp end of the arrangement who knew that the penalty for currency crimes was a violent death, and would shop the men who were the source of the fakes. The single most devious and talented coiner that Newton came across during his time at the Mint was Thomas Chaloner, a man who had undoubtedly the biggest brass neck in London. Chaloner wasn’t, for the most part, an underworld kingpin – he raised enough money to set himself up as a gentleman, and proceeded to harangue Parliament about how the Royal Mint was the source of the counterfeit coins! He thus brought himself to the attention of Newton, although his scheme to infiltrate the Mint through the front door ultimately failed.

Chaloner later turned back to coining, and Newton, relentless and driven, interrogating suspects in person and doing deals with prison informants, achieved his ultimate goal: the conviction of Thomas Chaloner. No coiner was to pose the same challenge thereafter. Thomas Levenson’s book is well-researched, well-written and very enjoyable, functioning as a very effective primer on Isaac Newton’s life and science, and as a good survey of the central importance of the physical currency to the economic life of the country (it’s also a timely look at the founding of the Bank of England and the emergence of the accounting magic that was paper currency, something that Chaloner also had a stab at counterfeiting). If one was to be critical, one might say that Chaloner’s role in the Royal Mint stage of Newton’s existence is slightly exaggerated by Levenson to meet the needs of his initial conception, but that’s a minor complaint – this is popular history at its best, both educational and entertaining.

• Read a Q&A with author Thomas Levenson
• Thomas Levenson, on Newton, on location (video)

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