Bodle

For people with the name, see Bodle (surname).

A bodle or boddle or bodwell, also known as a half groat or Turner was a Scottish copper coin, of less value than a bawbee, worth about one-sixth of an English penny. They were first issued under Charles I, and were minted until the coronation of Anne. ^[1] Its name may derive from Bothwell (a mint-master). ^[2]

It is mentioned in one of the songs of Joanna Baillie:

Black Madge, she is prudent, has sense in her noddle
Is douce and respectit; I carena a bodle.

The use of the word survives in the anglicised phrase "not to care a bodle", ^[2] which Brewer glosses as "not to care a farthing". Something similar appears in Burns' Tam o' Shanter (line 110), it is also mentioned:

Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle (He cared not devils a bodle)

Gallery

• 
  Turner or Bodle of Charles I, c.1642-1650 AD
• 
  Turner or Bodle of Charles II, c. 1663-1668 AD
• 
  Turner or Bodle of Charles II, c. 1677-1679 AD
• 
  Bodle or Turner of William and Mary, 1692

See also

• Money portal

• Plack
• Pound Scots
• Scottish coinage

References

1. "Scottish National Dictionary: Bodle". Dictionaries of the Scots Language. 2005. Retrieved 28 January 2023. A copper coin of Charles I., Charles II., William and Mary and William III., known also as Turners or Twopenny pieces, equivalent to one sixth of an English penny.
2.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bodle". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 110.

• MacKay, Charles – A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch (1888)
• Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

External links

• Elks, Ken. Coinage of Great Britain