The name Britannia is a Latinisation of the native Brittonic word for the islands of Great Britain, Pretanī, which originally, in the fourth to the first centuries BC, designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Britain.
Although the archetypical image of Britannia as a seated female figure with a shield first appeared on Roman bronze coins of the 1st century AD struck under Hadrian, Britannia's first appearance on British coinage was on the farthing in 1672, though earlier pattern versions had appeared in 1665, followed by the halfpenny later the same year. The legend and the image have featured on coins of Great Britain (later the United Kingdom) and British colonies ever since. |
