Money in Great Britain and Ireland during the mid-1920s

[chimbleysweep]

Setting: Great Britain and Ireland, 1924-1927
Searches and sources: Combinations of history of money in Great Britain, currency in Great Britain 1920s, history of currency, currency use 1920s Britain, Current Value of Old Money, Measuring Worth, the wiki page on coins of pound sterling, as well as numerous books set in Great Britain, both fiction

Comments

[loki_dip]

[loki_dip]

[chimbleysweep]

Thank you so much! This is all really, really great. Just what I need.

[sollersuk]

Also tanner = sixpence (persisted as long as the coin did); still around then ticky = threepence. Threepenny bits were still silver at that time, and the usual coin for putting in Christmas puddings.

Notes in common use: ten shillings, one pound, five pound. Fivers were completely different; on white paper, quite large, with fancy lettering. They were changed after WWII because the Nazis had produced huge quantities of forged notes. Very rarely seen as the purchasing power was so high. In 1930 in the "Diary of a Provincial Lady" the parish is delighted to hear that the church fete took over £100; some years later, in Dorothy L Sayers' "Busman's Honeymoon" Lord Peter Wimsey stuns everybody in sight by giving the vicar a fiver towards the church repair fund - the vicar's reaction is "It's a long time since I saw a proper Treasury note".

[chimbleysweep]

(unlikely that circus folks would see many of these!)

haahah TOO TRUE.

Thanks so much! Suddenly everything makes sense. I had no idea about punt.

[stormwreath]

Until 1928, the Irish Free State still used British money; they hadn't got around to printing their own yet. :-)

(And between 1928 and 1979 the Irish punt and British pound were pegged at a one-to-one exchange rate. The two countries even introduced decimalisation simultaneously.)

[duckgirlie]

Just to remember, Ireland wasn't a republic until 1949. During your period, it was still the Irish Free State.

[chimbleysweep]

omg of course it was. Talking about one period and thinking about the present. Definitely helpful of me.

[stormwreath]

If you asked a British person in 1924 to describe their coinage, they'd say it was pounds, shillings and pence. Yes, there were lots of other coins in circulation, as other people have mentioned: farthings and half-crowns and what have you. But pounds, shillings and pence were the three important ones. They were abbreviated as L.s.d., which could also be a slang term for money - that's from Latin, Librae (pounds), solidi (shillings), denarii (pence). The £ symbol used for pounds sterling is really just a letter "L" written in an elaborate style. Remember

[chimbleysweep]

Ahhhhh yes, thank you for all of this. Knowing precisely what the average person would say/use is exactly what I'm after. Not to mention knowing how people would react to money! As yes, my dear proprietor is an American millionaire and there are times he doesn't shy away from reminding people this.

[donald_r_oddy]

Given that there were relatively few deductions from wages most people would receive one or two notes in their weekly pay packet. Someone earning two pounds a week would get something like £1-17-4 in cash. That would be a pound note, a ten shilling note, two half crowns, two shillings and four pennies. It was good practice to ensure a wage packet was not entirely large denominations so someone receiving £2-0-6 would get a pound note, a ten shilling note, three half crowns, a florin and a shilling. Equally the fewer notes and coins in the wage packet the easier it is to make up and check.

I've not included the crown coin because I'm not sure when they dropped out of use. They had certainly disappeared by the 1950s and may never have been very common.

It's true a circus would rarely see a note because they would be used to pay the big bills like rent. Most shopkeepers would be able to change a ten shilling or pound note but not a fiver.

[inamac]

Just to add, most people won't deal with amounts much over £5, but if you're talking about the takings of a circus you might find it useful to know the vulgar slang terms for larger amounts (usually used in horserace betting) : Pony for £25 and Monkey for £500 (in use from late Victorian times to the present day).