New Money
What do Elizabeth Fry, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Sir John Houblon, Matthew Boulton and James Watt have in common? Have a look in your wallet and you may well see Fry, Darwin and Smith peering back at you from the fivers, tenners and twenties. You’re probably less likely to see Boulton and Watt as they’re on a new £50 note design and soon you won’t see Houblon at all, as he’s on the current £50 that the aforementioned pair have just replaced. Expect Houblon to get his marching orders early this year.
You’ll have a period of a few months to use up or trade in your old £50 notes and then, when they cease to become legal tender, you may as well use them to stuff your mattress. Actually that’s not true, because no matter how old a note is, you can always take it to the Bank of England and trade it in at face value. It may be worth having a look in the attic, because according to Bank of England museum curator, John Keyworth, 63 £1,000 notes are still kicking around somewhere (though collectors will now give you way more than a grand for one).
But back to the public face of our notes. We’ve been putting people on them since the Seventies. Have you ever wondered who gets to choose who goes on there and why they’re so old and many of them a bit obscure? Can’t we rustle up a few better worthies than Fry and Smith? The final decision on this rests with the governor of the Bank of England, currently Sir Mervyn King. He chooses from a shortlist of people who, according to Keyworth, are ‘British’ (naturalised foreigners such as Handel would count), and have ‘made a major contribution to British society’. He says it’s also important there are no ‘skeletons’ in their closets; controversy is not something the bank courts. For that reason politicians are also avoided until they reach ‘statesman status’, so now Winston Churchill is in the running and maybe Lloyd George, since there have already been two Scots on bank notes, but no Welsh.
The bank has a list of people suggested by the public and, on reflection, it may be a good thing that we’re not in control, having offered up the likes of Terry Wogan, David Beckham, Richard Branson and Robbie Williams. The only person nominated with any design credentials is the architect William Clough-Ellis. Lady Di is also on the list – imagine her on one side and the Queen on the other, that would be a right royal face off (though Bansky has already done it.) So for now, Boulton and Watt have been selected, the first time two people have appeared together. As well as being the powerhouses, almost literally, of the industrial revolution, they also had a direct link with our currency having at one point been asked to used their steam engines to mint coins. Once given the governor’s seal of approval, the design process begins. In the past it was down to individual designers; now it’s gone in-house with the world’s largest currency printer and papermaker, De La Rue.
In 2010, 300,000 counterfeit notes were taken out of circulation, 280,000 of which were £20 notes. Naturally, the design process is dominated by these statistics, with seven security features built in, including raised printing, micro-lettering, UV ink printing and lenticular ‘motion thread’. Aesthetics also play a major part. The detail in the drawings is huge and so is the attention to detail. The intricate decorative elements are usually firmly grounded in history. There are also a number of items that always have to be included such as ‘I promise to pay…’ and the gothic BoE script above that legend, unchanged since the first printed £50 note from 1853. Britannia, the symbol of the BoE, always appears too, but varies between historical versions on the designer’s whim.
As mentioned, in the past the design was down to individuals such as Roger Withington, who created the last £50 issued in 1994. These days no names are released. Interestingly, the Withington £50 was primarily drawn by hand, and at the modest BoE exhibition on the new note (until 23 March) there’s one of his original drawings of part of a note. It is around 20cm square, complete with handwritten pencil notes for the engravers. Not surprisingly, this time the process has been ‘90 per cent digital’ says Keyworth. A mixture of intaglio, letterpress and offset printing is now used, on special paper with cotton to give it a certain feel and longevity. I’m not sure if those missing 63 notes were printed on the same tough substrate, but if they were, I’d love to get my hands on one. I’d grab a taxi and look forward to seeing the cabbie’s face when I said, ‘I?haven’t anything smaller. Have you got change for a thousand?’
