£sd


£sd is the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies once common throughout Europe, especially in the British Isles and hence in several countries of the British Empire and subsequently the Commonwealth. The abbreviation originates from the Latin currency denominations librae, solidi, and denarii. In the United Kingdom, these were referred to as pounds, shillings, and pence.
Although the names originated from popular coins in the classical Roman Empire, their definitions and the ratios between them was introduced and imposed across Western Europe by Charlemagne, King of the Franks. The £sd system was the standard across much of European continent for nearly a thousand years, until the decimalisations of the 18th and 19th centuries. As the United Kingdom remained one of the few countries retaining it into the 20th century, the system became particularly associated with Britain. It was King Offa of Mercia who adopted the Frankish silver standard of librae, solidi and denarii into Britain in the late 8th century, and the system was used in much of the British Commonwealth until the 1960s and 1970s, with Nigeria being the last to abandon it in the form of the Nigerian pound on 1 January 1973.
Under this system, there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings, or 240 pence, in a pound. Although the standard ledger accounting system recorded only pounds, shillings and pence, actual minted coins could represent one, several or fractions of these units. The penny was subdivided into 4 farthings until 31 December 1960, when they ceased to be legal tender in the UK, and until 31 July 1969 there were also halfpennies in circulation. The perceived advantage of such a system was its use in some aspects of mental arithmetic, as it afforded many factors and hence fractions of a pound such as tenths, eighths, sixths and even sevenths and ninths if the guinea was used. When dealing with items in dozens, multiplication and division are straightforward; for example, if a dozen eggs cost four shillings, then each egg was priced at fourpence. Basic addition, however, could be more difficult than using a decimal system.
As countries of the British Empire became independent, some abandoned the £sd system quickly, while others retained it almost as long as the UK itself. The United States of America adopted a decimal system in 1792, 10 years after independence from the British Empire. Australia, for example, only changed to using a decimal currency on 14 February 1966, 65 years after independence. Still others, notably Ireland, decimalised only when the UK did. The UK abandoned the old penny on Decimal Day, 15 February 1971, when one pound sterling became divided into 100 new pence. This was a change from the system used in the earlier wave of decimalisations in Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa, in which the pound was replaced with a new major currency called either the "dollar" or the "rand". The British shilling was replaced by a 5 new pence coin worth one-twentieth of a pound.
For much of the 20th century, £sd was the monetary system of most of the Commonwealth countries, the major exceptions being Canada and India.
Historically, similar systems based on Roman coinage were used elsewhere; e.g., the division of the livre tournois in France and other pre-decimal currencies such as Spain, which had 20 maravedís to 1 real and 20 reals to 1 duro or 5 pesetas.

Origins

The classical Roman Empire originally used a currency system based on the "as" with decimal units, e.g. denarius = 10 as, quinarius = 5 as, sestercius = 2.5 as, etc. The denarius did become quite popular in circulation, but Roman accounting was actually done in sesterci units. Later Roman Emperors undertook multiple coinage reforms, redefining weights, rejigging their relative values and introducing new coins & new accounting systems for them. Emperor Diocletian introduced the gold "solidus" with its system of 1 solidus = 10 argentus = 40 nummus = 200 radiate = 500 laureate = 1000 denarius. Emperor Constantine created a new solidus at the rate of 72s to a new Roman pound of solid gold, and a new accounting for it as 1 solidus = 2 scripulum = 3.33 tremisses = 4 semissis = 18 miliarense = 24 siliqua. Since most reforms were not even completed before the next reform began, the late Roman empire had a veritable mess of multiple overlapping systems of weights and currencies.
Around the 780s the Frankish emperor Charlemagne cut through the mess of late Roman coinage by creating a new uniform system. Charlemagne defined the Carolingian "libra", as a new measure of weight equivalent to around 489.6 grams. Charlemagne ordered 240 silver units known as "denarius" to be struck from the new Carolingian pound of pure silver, each denarius containing 22.5 grains of silver. To help accounting, Charles also decreed that the pound was divisible into 20 'solidi'. Thus began the £sd accounting system.
The new coinage and accounting system was imposed uniformly across the vast Carolingian Empire, which then covered modern France, the Low Countries, and most of Germany and Italy. The system also infiltrated other countries on the peripheries of Carolingian empire. In the late 8th century, King Offa of Mercia imported the system into Britain to facilitate transactions with the Roman Catholic Church. But it was not the sole system in Britain - the £sd system would have to compete for a while with the Viking "mark" accounting system, introduced into Danelaw regions. Although £sd ultimately prevailed in Britain, the "mark of account" system lingered on in North Sea trade and areas of Hanseatic influence through much of the Middle Ages.
The £sd system prevailed across much of Western Europe. In French, it was known as the livre, sous and denier, in Italian as lira, soldo and denaro, in German as pfund, schilling and pfennig and in English as pound, shilling and penny. The English name pound is a Germanic adaptation of the Latin phrase libra pondo 'a pound weight'. On the Iberian peninsula, the kingdom of Aragon adopted the Carolingian £sd system, given in Catalan as lliura, sou and diners, but the kingdoms of Portugal and Castile retained the currency system inherited from al-Andalus, the 'maravedi' with different multiples and subdivisions.
During the early Middle Ages, only the denarius was minted and circulated as an actual silver coin, while the libra and solidus remained merely units of account. So long as the silver content of the denarius was maintained, any quantity of money could then be determined by counting coins rather than by weighing silver or gold. But the gradual exhaustion of silver mines in Europe in the 11th century led to a scarcity of silver and difficulties in maintaining coinage. Repeated debasements of the denarius coin by Medieval monarchs prompted eventually to minting of larger coins starting in the 13th century, such as the groat representing larger denominations of 3 or 4 denari. It also led to specification of currencies by mint of origin in contracts and accounting.
To facilitate larger transactions, gold coins began to be minted in western Europe around the same time - starting in the Italian republics in the mid-13th century, and in other kingdoms in the 14th century. Gold coins typically represented larger nominal sums. The French "franc", introduced in 1360, was the first coin anywhere to represent exactly £1. The gold "sovereign", first minted in 1489, was the first English £1 coin.
Although the £sd system remained intact in ledger accounting, the variety of new coins of various multiples and qualities led to common expression of quantities in terms of number of coins But they would all have to be converted into formal £sd units in accounts.
The £sd system continued in much of Western Europe for nearly a thousand years, until the "decimalisations" of the 18th and 19th centuries. The United States of America was among the first to drop the £sd system and adopt a decimal currency in 1792. In Europe, decimalisation of currency began in Revolutionary France with the famous law of 1795, replacing the £sd accounting system of the Ancien régime with a system of 1 franc = 10 decimes = 100 centimes. Decimalisation was carried by French armies to neighboring European countries during the Napoleonic wars. By the mid-19th century, most of continental Europe had decimalised, leaving the United Kingdom as the only major country to continue to maintain the £sd system.
Britain considered following the continental example. A Select Parliamentary committee was set up in 1821 to inquire into decimalisation, but ended up recommending retaining the £sd system. However, pressure groups were formed inside Britain advocating the adoption of decimalisation of the currency, and Parliament returned to the matter in the 1850s. Various decimilisation schemes were considered - the Pound-and-Mil scheme, the Farthing scheme, the Half-penny scheme, the Alb scheme, etc. - but all were determined to have deficiencies, and transition would be too difficult and expensive. The £sd system would be maintained in Britain until 1971.

Decimalisations

All countries and territories that had used the £sd system have now decimalised their currency. The British pound sterling was one of the last to be decimalised, on 15 February 1971. In places where £sd was used, there were two alternative approaches to decimalisation:
  1. One new penny was defined as pound, and the main unit was unchanged; thus each new penny was worth 2.4 old pence.
  2. Alternatively, a new main unit was created equal to ten shillings, with one cent = dollar = 1.2 old penny. This was the approach adopted for the dollar in Australia and New Zealand.
Some countries changed the name of the base unit when they decimalised their currency, including:
The following table shows the conversion of common denominations of UK coins of the £sd system.
Common nameAmountNew £p

Halfpenny, ha'pennyd.p ≈ 0.2083pc ≈ 0.4167c
Penny1d.p ≈ 0.4167pc ≈ 0.8333c
Threepence3d.pc
Sixpence6d.p5c
Shilling1/-5p10c
Florin, Two-bob2/-10p20c
Half crown2/6p25c

The following coins were not in common circulation in the UK at the time of decimalisation, though the ten shilling note and the pound note were.
Common nameAmountNew £p

Crown5/-25p50c
Half sovereign10/-50p$1
Sovereign£1£1$2

The farthing, at penny, was never converted, as it ceased to be legal tender a decade prior to decimalisation. In 1971, a new penny would have been worth 9.6 farthings. Similarly, the old halfpenny and the half-crown were not converted in the UK either, having been withdrawn previously.

Pre-decimal coins and banknotes

United Kingdom pre-decimal banknotes are no longer legal tender, but are exchangeable for their face value if they are taken directly to the Bank of England. The last £sd coins to cease being legal tender in the UK after Decimal Day were the sixpence, the shilling and the florin. Commemorative crowns minted post decimalisation are still legal tender, but are rarely, if ever, spent.
In Australia, as of 2018, pre-decimal coins can still be found in circulation occasionally as 5, 10 and 20-cent coins.
The last £sd banknote to cease to be legal tender anywhere was the Isle of Man ten shilling note, which ceased to be legal tender there in 2013.

Writing conventions and pronunciations

There were several ways to represent amounts of money in writing and speech, with no formal convention; for example:
Halfpennies and farthings were represented by the appropriate symbol after the whole pence.
A convention frequently used in retail pricing was to list prices over one pound all in shillings, rather than in pounds and shillings; for example, £4-18-0 would be written as 98/–. This is still seen in shilling categories of Scottish beer, such as 90/– beer.
Sometimes, prices of luxury goods and furniture were expressed by merchants in guineas, although the guinea coin had not been struck since 1799. A guinea was 21 shillings. Professionals such as lawyers and physicians, art dealers, and some others stated their fees in guineas rather than pounds, while, for example, salaries were stated in pounds per annum. Historically, at some auctions, the purchaser would bid and pay in guineas but the seller would receive the same number of pounds; the commission was the same number of shillings. Tattersalls, the main auctioneer of racehorses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, continues this tradition of conducting auctions in guineas at its UK sales. The vendor's commission is 5%. The word "guineas" is still found in the names of some British horse races, even though their prize funds are now fixed in pounds – such as the 1,000 Guineas and 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket Racecourse.

Colloquial terms

A farthing or ha'penny bit was called a "mag" because they were originally made from copper and made a ringing noise when dropped. The game of "penny pitching" was called "mag flying".
A threepenny bit was called a "Joey" ; it was a silver or silver alloy coin from 1845 to 1937 and a 12-sided bronze coin from 1937 to 1971. It was known as a "tickey" in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. In Australia it was known as a tray, or a tray bit, from the French "trois" meaning three.
A fourpenny bit was often known as a "groat", from the medieval four-penny silver coin of the same name. It was nicknamed a "Joey", from Joseph Hume, the Radical MP who championed its reintroduction. When the new threepence coin replaced the fourpence coin in circulation in 1845, it took over its nickname.
A sixpenny bit was a "tanner", derived from the Romany word tano, meaning "small". It was also called a "tester" or "testoon" from the teston, a French coin. In Australia it was called a "Zack".
One shilling was called a "bob" or "thin 'un". It is known in Australia as a "deener" possibly from 'Dinar' or 'Denarius'.
A two-shilling piece known as a florin, was in everyday use. It was referred to as "two bob", a "two-shilling bit", or a "two-bob-bit".
A two-shillings-and-sixpence piece, in use until the introduction of decimal currency, was known as "half a crown" or a "half crown". They were discontinued in 1971 as there was no need for a New Pence coin.
A five-shilling piece was called a crown or a dollar.
A ten-shilling note was sometimes known as "half a bar". It was first printed in 1914 by the Treasury during World War One to conserve silver. These early Treasury notes were nicknamed "Bradburys", from the prominent stylized signature of Sir John Bradbury, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury.
A pound was called a "nicker" or "quid". The term "quid" is said to originate from the Latin phrase quid pro quo. A pound coin, or sovereign, was called a "sov" or "thick 'un". A pound note was called a "bar" or "sheet" or simply a "note".
The larger denomination notes printed from the 18th century to 1943 were called "white notes" because they were printed on lightweight white paper with the text in black ink.

In popular culture

The currency of Lancre, a kingdom in the fictional world of Discworld, is a parody of the £sd system. The currency is the same from the farthing to the shilling, but adds the Crown, Tencrown, Sovereign, and Hedgehog. The coins are all rather heavy and are hard to carry.
The currency of knuts, sickles and galleons in the Harry Potter books is also a parody of the £sd system, with 29 knuts to a sickle and 17 sickles to a galleon. It serves as the currency of the Wizarding World, while pounds are still used by Muggles, the non-magical people.
Lysergic acid diethylamide was sometimes called "pounds, shillings and pence" during the 1960s, because of the abbreviation LSD. The English rock group the Pretty Things released a 1966 single titled "£.s.d." that highlighted the double entendre. The Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment called the first field trial with LSD as a chemical weapon "Moneybags" as a pun.
The score of 26 at darts was sometimes called "half-a-crown" as late as the 1990s, though this did start to confuse the younger players. 26 is also referred to as "Breakfast", since 2/6 or half a crown was the standard cost for breakfast pre-decimalisation.