One of the most famous of British institutions was its currency. Prior to 1971, all British currency was Imperial, and this led to confusion and misunderstandings by people who were not natives of the United Kingdom. We often read old books which tell us that something cost a half-crown, a shilling, a florin, a groat or a guinea…what were all these coins and how much were they worth?
Welcome to the confusing world of pre-decimal British currency. After 1971, British currency was decimalised and revalued so that a hundred pennies equaled one pound sterling. But before that, the British people had a whole array of coins at their disposal. So, what were they?
Pre-Decimal British Coinage
1. Farthing – The smallest coin in pre-decimal currency, a farthing was 1/4 of a penny.
2. Ha’penny – Or ‘Half penny’, it was 1/2 of a penny in value.
3. Penny – Still around today, a penny was 1/12th of a shilling and 1/240th of a pound.
4. Tuppence – ‘Two pennies’.
5. Thripence – ‘Three pennies’.
6. Sixpence – ‘Six pennies’, also known as a ‘tanner’. This was half a shilling.
7. Shilling – Also known as a ‘bob’, a shilling was 12 pence and 1/20th of a pound.
8. Pound Sterling – A pound sterling was 20 shillings, or 240 pence. Colloquially known as a ‘Quid’. Five pound notes and ten pound notes were popularly called ‘Fivers’ and ‘Tenners’ respectively (and still are, today).
9. Sovereign – Another name for a pound.
10. Crown – A crown was five shillings, or a quarter of a pound.
11. Half-Crowns – A half-crown was…half of a crown, or two shillings and sixpence (half a shilling).
12. Guinea – One pound and one shilling (21s).
13. Florin – Was two shillings (24 pence) or 1/10th of a pound.
14. Double Florin – Was four shillings (48 pence) or 1/5th of a pound.
15. Groat – A groat was fourpence, or four pennies, in value. 1/3 of a shilling. Also known as a ‘Joey’.
The justification for minting a four-penny coin came from the fact that back in the Victorian era, London cabbies started rates for transport at four pence. Usually, passengers gave the driver sixpence for tuppence change. This was deemed inconvenient and slow by some, so the fourpence was introduced for speed and convenience. Fourpence was also the price charged by some doss-houses (cheap boarding houses) in London’s disreputable East End for the use of a bed for the night.
L, S, D
“…Oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s.,lunch 2s. 6d., glass sherry, 8d…” – Sherlock Holmes, reading a hotel bill, “The Noble Bachelor”.
LSD. What’s it mean and what do the letters stand for? First, you can forget about drugs, that’s not what it’s referring to. The letters actually stand for “librae”, “solidi” and “denarii”, which stand, in-turn, for Pounds (A loopy ‘L’ with either one or two lines through it, make up the Pound Sterling symbol), Shillings (The “S”) and Pence (the “D”, later changed to “P” in 1971 with the decimalisation of British currency).
Therefore, the bill, as an example, reads as:
Rooms: 8 Shillings.
Breakfast: 2 shillings and sixpence (or half a crown).
Cocktail: 1 shilling.
Lunch: 2 shillings and sixpence (or half a crown).
Sherry, one glass: 8 pence.
Monetary Slang
Two and six, three and four, and so on and so forth. As we have seen, currency in pre-decimal Britain was a maze of coins, banknotes, values and names. Here are some common phrases or slang-terms for old British currency…
‘Ha’penny’, ‘Tuppence’, ‘thripence’, ‘fourpence’ and ‘tanner’.
Stand, respectively, for a half-penny, two pennies, three pennies and four pennies. ‘Tanner’ was a slang-term which referred specifically to the silver sixpence coin.
‘Bob’ was slang-term for a shilling.
‘Two-and-six’ referred to two shillings and sixpence, or a half-crown.
‘Quid’ was (and still is) slang for a pound sterling.
‘Fiver’ and ‘tenner’ referred (and still do refer) to five and ten pound banknotes.
VERY well researched, correct lexicography for a financial dictionary, and a short, but very enjoyable read. LSD wasn’t even made as lysergic acid diethyalmide until 1938.
Jason
The symbol -/2 does this mean two pence (tuppence)
Would love to know
Tony
Hi Tony,
Currency was expressed as the following (‘L’ used for the pound sign, since I don’t have one):
L2 6s 3d = Two pounds, six shillings & thripence.
4/2 = Four shillings & tuppence.
5/- = Five shillings (no pence).
3s 6d = Three shillings and sixpence.
To my knowledge, “-/2” was not a recognised way of writing currency. It would’ve been written as “2d”, for “two pennies” or “tuppence”.
You did occasionally have denominations written as: “1/2d” or “1/4d”. These were for the ha’penny (half-penny) and the farthing (quarter-penny) respectively.
Anyone who found it confusing (apart from tourists, maybe) must have been a bit of a dullard. The system is no different to feet and inches. So easy even the village idiot could use it with no probs.
just 2 things to comment on……………… I was always led to believe that a Guinea was in fact £1.1s is this incorrect?
AND ………………2/- is the way to write 2 shillings so maybe Tony just got it back to front?!
Hi Beverly, thanks for reading. I always read that a Guinea was a pound sterling, but I might be wrong. I’m not sure. All my research told me as much.
Tony was asking how two pennies (“tuppence”) was expressed. As far as I know, pence, in the absence of all other denominations, was just expressed as ‘d’. So tuppence was ‘2d’, sixpence was ‘6d’ etc.
Brings back some memories, although I remember the three pence coin being called a Threepenny bit. Plus, I believe the change to decimal was overnight and retailers rounded up all the prices causing a bit of an outrage at the time, short lived however.
Hi Nobby,
I’ve heard of both Thripence AND threepenny bit as well, but thripence seemed to be more common, so I included that one instead of the other.
The Guinea was originally a One Pound gold coin worth 20 shillings silver (struck from gold mined in New Guinea), but with relative market fluctuations the price of gold in it went up to 21 shillings worth of silver – thus in the early 19th century it was replaced by a smaller gold “Sovereign” of 20 shillings. The older larger Guineas circulated for a long while alongside the slightly smaller Sovereigns. All the gold disappeared during the Great War when notes replaced higher value transactions – however, the Professions always had charged their fees in Guineas rather than Pounds (sovereigns) and continued to do so. Snobby or pretentious shops, apeing the professions, often advertised their prices in Guineas as an oblique way of saying to the masses that their custom was not welcome – “well-to-do only please!” This unbelievable practice continued into my youth in the 1960s, until swept away by the social revolution (and pending currency reform) of that decade!
Does anyone know the origin of calling a sixpence piece a “Tanner”? Was it the price one paid a tanner to do some work perhaps in medieval times? Who knows?
Apart from the original term describing the old gold Guinea piece, the term “Guinea” came to mean one pound plus one shilling,
often used as a bargaining trick to ‘seal the deal’
Hi Simon,
Yes you’re right. I admit I neglected to fix that mistake. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
I would be interested to find out the mean of “tanner” can you help? please.
Hi J, sorry I can’t help. I’m aware of it, but that’s about it.
A threepenny bit was called a joey,a guinea was £1 and 1 shilling,as Tony said it was originally £1 but very quickly became £1.1s.od,…..in the sixtys it was still fashionable for thing to be priced in guineas…very posh !
No such word as thripence – it was thrupence, or thrupenny bit.