Blog Tracker
25-07-2020, 11:51
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://boakandbailey.com/2020/07/coin-towers-in-pubs/)
Looking through old brewery in-house magazines from the 1950s and 60s, one recurring image is inescapable: a monstrous pile of pennies on a bar, in the process of being toppled by a celebrity.Investigating this oddity of pub culture has been on our to-do list for some time but John Clarke (@beer4john (https://twitter.com/Beer4John/status/1275062439604699139)) raised it with us recently which prompted us to dig into the archives.
First, we started with our own collection of magazines from Whitbread and Watney’s. Between them, they give a clear idea of when this trend took off and explain the mechanics.
How it workedThe House of Whitbread for spring 1955 has the earliest reference with a wonderful photograph of Mr. R. Back, tenant of The Trooper Inn, Froxfield, Wiltshire, and a customer placing a penny.
https://i0.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/tower_of_coins_1.jpg?resize=580%2C470&ssl=1Mr. R. Back.https://i0.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/tower_of_coins_3.jpg?resize=580%2C840&ssl=1Mr. and Mrs. George Jones.The Red Barrel for August 1955 has another early reference, with more detail:
Congratulations to Mr and Mrs George Jones of The Sun Tavern, Long Acre, [London] WC2, who, through their efforts and the generosity of their customers collected a tower of coppers, totalling 4,602, and amounting to £19 3s. 5d. The amount netted was given to the Spastics, and the pennies, stuck with beer, nearly reached the ceiling. The ceremony of ‘Pushing the Pennies’, that is tumbling over the tower, aroused considerable interest, including that of Alan Dick of the Daily Herald who reported the event.
The key detail there: the coins were glued together with beer.
It’s also worth pointing out that the National Spastic Society, founded in 1952 to support parents of children with cerebral palsy, and now known as Scope, was a frequent recipient of funds raised from penny towers. We wonder if this was something they suggested to publicans as part of their fundraising activity?
The next entry from the Red Barrel, from October the same year, concerns The Northumberland Arms in Isleworth, West London, offers more info on how these towers were structured and on the fund-raising tactics surrounding them:
The pyramid of pennies shown in the picture was built on a half-pint glass, and so large did it grow that it overtopped the tall figure of Wag Carbine, a regular customer, as he stood on the bar beside it. Carbine craved the favour of pushing over the pyramid of pennies christened ‘Little Willie’. Jack Cannon, the publican, consented, with the proviso that he had £5 to the pennies for the privilege… During the evening of ‘Little Willie’s’ demise shillings were paid for the opportunity to guess the amount collected.
Wag Carbine! What a name.
In total, they raised about £70 which paid for the old folk of the Isleworth Silver Threads to spend a day at the seaside.
When did it start?Elsewhere, we’ve found reference to this trend having begun in 1954, specifically at The Masons Arms in London’s Fitzrovia district. And here’s evidence (https://www.britishpathe.com/video/pckles-piles-the-pennies) that, yes, that pub did have a coin tower at that time:
But it didn’t take long to find earlier examples via the marvellous British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), such as this from the Birmingham Mail for 10 August 1943:
This is not a Fasces – the symbol of the defunct Fascist regime – but a pillar of British money collected in two months from June 1 to July 31 by patrons of The Corner Cupboard licensed house, Union Street, Birmingham. Including two 10 [shilling] notes and a reinforcement of half-crowns in two layers, the ‘pillar of wealth’ contains about £40 with a pint glass base on which it stands full of silver and octagonal [threepenny] pieces and a V for Victory sign made up of shillings and sixpenny pieces.
There are also earlier references to ‘pyramids of pennies’ outside pubs, at market town carnivals, from the 1930s. As ever, if you know of an earlier example of a tower of coins in a pub, we’d be delighted to hear about it.
For now, though, we’ve got a hazy chronology: it began between the wars, crept into pubs in the 1940s and became a full blown craze in 1954-55.
The celebrity connectionThe presence in the film clip above of actor and broadcaster Wilfred Pickles shows that celebrities were connected with this almost from the beginning.
There are accounts of publicans inviting the Queen to knock down their towers (she didn’t come, but the Duke of Edinburgh sent a cheque) and no shortage of photos like this absolute corker:
#RememberWhen (https://twitter.com/hashtag/RememberWhen?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) @HibsOfficial (https://twitter.com/hibsofficial?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)'s Pat Stanton kicked over a pile of pennies at the Snuff Box pub? (It was 1971) pic.twitter.com/eKZn6J0eGb (https://t.co/eKZn6J0eGb)
— Edinburgh Evening News (@edinburghpaper) December 16, 2015 (https://twitter.com/edinburghpaper/status/677093661927194624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Or films like this in which former Goon Show star Harry Secombe does the honours:
In fact, go and spend a few minutes lost in this carefully calibrated Google Image search (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pile%20of%20pennies%22%20pub&tbm=isch&tbs=ic%3Agray&hl=en).
When did it stop?The short answer is, it hasn’t. When we asked on Twitter, people told us they’ve seen this happen in recent years and here’s an account of a penny-pile pushover event from 2018 (https://www.joseph-holt.com/news/the-derby-brewery-arms-brings-back-a-bit-of-british-heritage-in-the-penny-pile-to-raise-funds-for-maggies-charity).
But it’s fair to say its heyday was the 1950s to the 1970s and that its popularity began to tail off after that, perhaps as pubs became more corporate and less characterful.
Or maybe it just began to seem a bit naff with fruit machines and jukeboxes competing for that loose change.
There’s also the fact that on at least one occasion, the vast weight of one of these towers caused material damage to the pub, as reported in the Coventry Evening Telegraph for 16 December 1966:
A pile of pennies – £90-worth of them, collected for charity at the Old Mill Inn, Baginton, was so heavy that the stout oak bar counter cracked under the weight. When two members of Coventry City football team ceremoniously pushed the pile over, it was found there were 2,160 pennies, weighing over three hundredweight. The manager of the inn, Mr. Harold Smith, said today: “Towards the end, we noticed a dip in the counter. Then we could see a crack.”
When you think about it, a precarious tower of metal covered in sticky stale beer doesn’t seem entirely safe or hygienic, does it?
Pub culture: the tower of pennies for charity (https://boakandbailey.com/2020/07/coin-towers-in-pubs/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2020/07/coin-towers-in-pubs/)
Looking through old brewery in-house magazines from the 1950s and 60s, one recurring image is inescapable: a monstrous pile of pennies on a bar, in the process of being toppled by a celebrity.Investigating this oddity of pub culture has been on our to-do list for some time but John Clarke (@beer4john (https://twitter.com/Beer4John/status/1275062439604699139)) raised it with us recently which prompted us to dig into the archives.
First, we started with our own collection of magazines from Whitbread and Watney’s. Between them, they give a clear idea of when this trend took off and explain the mechanics.
How it workedThe House of Whitbread for spring 1955 has the earliest reference with a wonderful photograph of Mr. R. Back, tenant of The Trooper Inn, Froxfield, Wiltshire, and a customer placing a penny.
https://i0.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/tower_of_coins_1.jpg?resize=580%2C470&ssl=1Mr. R. Back.https://i0.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/tower_of_coins_3.jpg?resize=580%2C840&ssl=1Mr. and Mrs. George Jones.The Red Barrel for August 1955 has another early reference, with more detail:
Congratulations to Mr and Mrs George Jones of The Sun Tavern, Long Acre, [London] WC2, who, through their efforts and the generosity of their customers collected a tower of coppers, totalling 4,602, and amounting to £19 3s. 5d. The amount netted was given to the Spastics, and the pennies, stuck with beer, nearly reached the ceiling. The ceremony of ‘Pushing the Pennies’, that is tumbling over the tower, aroused considerable interest, including that of Alan Dick of the Daily Herald who reported the event.
The key detail there: the coins were glued together with beer.
It’s also worth pointing out that the National Spastic Society, founded in 1952 to support parents of children with cerebral palsy, and now known as Scope, was a frequent recipient of funds raised from penny towers. We wonder if this was something they suggested to publicans as part of their fundraising activity?
The next entry from the Red Barrel, from October the same year, concerns The Northumberland Arms in Isleworth, West London, offers more info on how these towers were structured and on the fund-raising tactics surrounding them:
The pyramid of pennies shown in the picture was built on a half-pint glass, and so large did it grow that it overtopped the tall figure of Wag Carbine, a regular customer, as he stood on the bar beside it. Carbine craved the favour of pushing over the pyramid of pennies christened ‘Little Willie’. Jack Cannon, the publican, consented, with the proviso that he had £5 to the pennies for the privilege… During the evening of ‘Little Willie’s’ demise shillings were paid for the opportunity to guess the amount collected.
Wag Carbine! What a name.
In total, they raised about £70 which paid for the old folk of the Isleworth Silver Threads to spend a day at the seaside.
When did it start?Elsewhere, we’ve found reference to this trend having begun in 1954, specifically at The Masons Arms in London’s Fitzrovia district. And here’s evidence (https://www.britishpathe.com/video/pckles-piles-the-pennies) that, yes, that pub did have a coin tower at that time:
But it didn’t take long to find earlier examples via the marvellous British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), such as this from the Birmingham Mail for 10 August 1943:
This is not a Fasces – the symbol of the defunct Fascist regime – but a pillar of British money collected in two months from June 1 to July 31 by patrons of The Corner Cupboard licensed house, Union Street, Birmingham. Including two 10 [shilling] notes and a reinforcement of half-crowns in two layers, the ‘pillar of wealth’ contains about £40 with a pint glass base on which it stands full of silver and octagonal [threepenny] pieces and a V for Victory sign made up of shillings and sixpenny pieces.
There are also earlier references to ‘pyramids of pennies’ outside pubs, at market town carnivals, from the 1930s. As ever, if you know of an earlier example of a tower of coins in a pub, we’d be delighted to hear about it.
For now, though, we’ve got a hazy chronology: it began between the wars, crept into pubs in the 1940s and became a full blown craze in 1954-55.
The celebrity connectionThe presence in the film clip above of actor and broadcaster Wilfred Pickles shows that celebrities were connected with this almost from the beginning.
There are accounts of publicans inviting the Queen to knock down their towers (she didn’t come, but the Duke of Edinburgh sent a cheque) and no shortage of photos like this absolute corker:
#RememberWhen (https://twitter.com/hashtag/RememberWhen?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) @HibsOfficial (https://twitter.com/hibsofficial?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)'s Pat Stanton kicked over a pile of pennies at the Snuff Box pub? (It was 1971) pic.twitter.com/eKZn6J0eGb (https://t.co/eKZn6J0eGb)
— Edinburgh Evening News (@edinburghpaper) December 16, 2015 (https://twitter.com/edinburghpaper/status/677093661927194624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Or films like this in which former Goon Show star Harry Secombe does the honours:
In fact, go and spend a few minutes lost in this carefully calibrated Google Image search (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pile%20of%20pennies%22%20pub&tbm=isch&tbs=ic%3Agray&hl=en).
When did it stop?The short answer is, it hasn’t. When we asked on Twitter, people told us they’ve seen this happen in recent years and here’s an account of a penny-pile pushover event from 2018 (https://www.joseph-holt.com/news/the-derby-brewery-arms-brings-back-a-bit-of-british-heritage-in-the-penny-pile-to-raise-funds-for-maggies-charity).
But it’s fair to say its heyday was the 1950s to the 1970s and that its popularity began to tail off after that, perhaps as pubs became more corporate and less characterful.
Or maybe it just began to seem a bit naff with fruit machines and jukeboxes competing for that loose change.
There’s also the fact that on at least one occasion, the vast weight of one of these towers caused material damage to the pub, as reported in the Coventry Evening Telegraph for 16 December 1966:
A pile of pennies – £90-worth of them, collected for charity at the Old Mill Inn, Baginton, was so heavy that the stout oak bar counter cracked under the weight. When two members of Coventry City football team ceremoniously pushed the pile over, it was found there were 2,160 pennies, weighing over three hundredweight. The manager of the inn, Mr. Harold Smith, said today: “Towards the end, we noticed a dip in the counter. Then we could see a crack.”
When you think about it, a precarious tower of metal covered in sticky stale beer doesn’t seem entirely safe or hygienic, does it?
Pub culture: the tower of pennies for charity (https://boakandbailey.com/2020/07/coin-towers-in-pubs/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2020/07/coin-towers-in-pubs/)