Under the Romans, Britannia was the major part of that island off the northern shores of Europe, first invaded by Julius Caesar in 55BC. It shared a northern border with Caledonia (Scotland) and lay adjacent to Hibernia (Ireland) to the west. The emperors Claudius and Anoninus Pius issued coins adorned with a female figure labelled Britannia. It was the first personification of the British Isles, developed, ironically, to characterise a conquered country.

Britannia then lay dormant until she was reawakened by Henry Peacham in his Minerva Britanna, (1612) the first English emblem book. Here she is described,
With haire disheveld, and in mournfull wise
Who spurns a shippe, with scepter in her hand
Thus BRITAINEs drawen in old Antiquities…

King Charles II had her likeness cast on the humble copper farthing, minted in 1672. Based on her Roman forbear, she sits in profile on a rock, swathed in draperies, holding an olive branch in one hand and a spear and shield in the other. The shield is adorned with the crosses of St George and St Andrew. Samuel Pepys believed that her appearance was a portrait of Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond, one of the King's mistresses.

	Pearlware Jug c1805 Britannia mourns at Nelson's tomb Possibly made in Bristol

James Thomson wrote his famous poem, Rule Britannia! as the finale of his masque, Alfred commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1740. It was set to music by Thomas Arne but became the Princes funeral ode when he died suddenly in 1751. Some of the earliest English porcelain figures, issued by the Chelsea and the Girl-in-a-swing factories were of Britannia mourning the Prince. Soon afterwards, the Worcester factory used printed likenesses of Britannia to frame portraits of George III as she steadily gained popularity. Minerva had been a popular choice for early lead statues. Minerva, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena, was goddess of both wisdom and warfare. Eventually, as the potters transformed her into Britannia, the head of the monstrous Gorgon (a gift from her protégé, Perseus) impaled on the centre of her shield, was replaced with the crosses of the Union flag.

Britannia has appeared consistently on British coins and banknotes since the time of Charles II. Christopher Ironside, designer of the 1971 heptagonal 50p. piece, reinstated her olive branch, lost since the Napoleonic wars. Her appearance had been very similar to that of the war-like Minerva, championed by Napoleon, who menaced Britannia from across the English Channel. It is ironic that Britannia and Marianne (the personification of France who followed Minerva) symbolised the aspirations of modern, democratic nations at a time when citizenship remained a male monopoly.