Eloy Mestrelle

Who was Eloy Mestrelle?

Mestrelle had worked in the Moulin de Monnais, the French Mint at Versailles before bringing his mechanised coin manufacturing system to England in 1559. The new queen, Elizabeth 1 needed new coins struck (and needed to eliminate huge amounts of counterfeit coin) and Mestrelle soon landed the job of assembling and using the Britain's first coin stamping machine. The technique gave a finish far superior to those of existing hand made coin in England, although these continued to be made. His work began in 1560 employing a dozen men, but work stopped for almost a year during the plague in 1563. In 1568, however, a relative, Philip Mestrelle who had come with him from France at the outset, was arrested for making four counterfeit crowns, and Eloy Mestrelle was also implicated. Philip was hung and quartered at Tyburn in January 1569, and Eloy only began minting coin again in 1570, although some of his equipment had been confiscated and thus the quality of his coin was not so good. Eloy had always come close to being accused of counterfeiting, even in France, and subsequently became victim of a conspiracy which sent him too, to the gallows. (New Scientist 29 April 2000 pp 44 and 45)