I just started reading the five

[Hellokittymania]

Can anyone recommend a good history website or even a YouTube video about that time in England. I’m really curious about it now. And, I have a lot of trouble with math, but I’m just wondering was 1 pound like 100 pounds today? And 100 shillings were in 1 pound, and then 100 pants were in one shilling? I think I’m confused here…

Sorry, I’m using dictation. It doesn’t write Things correctly sometimes. I think you can gather what pants means though

Reading the five what? You've certainly got me confused.

Single, the name of the book is the five. It’s about the victims that Jack the ripper killed, it’s telling their side of the story.

Decimal money was rather confusing.

There were

12 pennies to a shilling (bob)
20 shillings to the pound
21 shillings to a guinea
240 pennies to the pound

Then there were farthings (1/4p), half-pennies (ha'penny), sixpences (tanner), three penny (thrupenny) bits, florins, half crowns.

There are some good websites for conversion to modern money. If you google 'what were 50 shillings in X year worth today' you get a lot of help.

There were 20 shillings in a pound, and twelve pence in a shilling.

A shining was also known as a bob, there were coins worth three and six pence (threepenny bit and sixpenny bit), two shillings (a two bob piece) and half a crown (two shillings and sixpence). There was a also note worth ten shillings known as a ten bob note.

When written down, two shillings and sixpence would be written 2/6 (shillings first, then pence after the slash).

Yes, there is one paragraph words talking about how much things cost for a family… And it was saying that for an average family it would cost 1 pound eight ceilings and one penny… And then it was giving a breakdown, food was 20 ceilings etc.… Schilling.

This is a good historical currency converter. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/

£1 then is about £70 today (about $90).

Do you mean The Five by Hallie Rubenhold? About the five wome killed by Jack the Ripper? You could look here for a currency converter that gives you relative purchasing power in today’s money

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/

Glad I didn’t have to deal with that kind of money… It would confuse me

It wasn’t that long ago the money change (if you’re an old gimmer like me), well 1971.

Division yes I am. I heard about it on here a couple of days ago. I just started reading it today.

@FlamingoAndJohn - Feb 15 1971, my dad's birthday. The changeover must have been a bit daunting.

The old money was easy peasy.

Fleming, I’m just curious because I am visually impaired. Were the old coins tactile? Could you tell them apart easily by feel?

When they talked about changing the money lots of people complained that the new money was too complicated. I saw footage of one lady saying ‘why don’t they just wait until us old people are dead before they change it’.

I don’t remember pre decimal currency being used but I do remember using the coins. Two shilling was used as 10p and one shilling as 5p.

The only thrupenny bit was angled rather like current £1 coin so I expect you could feel that. The old pennies were huge!

@FlamingoAndJohn

My mum used to trick her little sister with the coin size. They'd both get a shilling for Easter. Mum would spend most of hers and have a penny left. Then she'd say to my Auntie (who hadn't spent any)

'Awww. Have you only got a little coin? Look at my big coin! Tell you what, because I'm a good big sister I'll give you my big coin and I'll have your little one'

Auntie was furious when she learned about money properly

Some coins had serrated edges - 2/- , half crowns, and sixpences. The 3d bit had little edges like a current £1 coin, the farthing was tiny and thin. So yes you could tell just by touch what they were.

boo, I would be furious too. Imagine all of the sweets you could buy… Or whatever you wanted.

And when you say it was a big coin, do you mean bigger than a 2 pound coin?

Yes slightly bigger than a £2 coin but thinner.

Imagine a penny, thin and copper, but the size of a £2 coin.

The Five is an excellent book - hope you enjoy it! I can just remember pre decimal coins and they were all very different from each other. The uniformity of decimal currency came as a shock!

The old penny was written d but 6d was sixpence. When we went decimal the penny was written p and suddenly called a pee. We actually still have one penny and lots of pence. We do not have a coin called a pee.

Although we do say (up here anyway) 'that costs 50 pee'

I’m really enjoying the book! I am on the part about Annie now.