To think they could find at least ONE inspirational woman to put on our bank notes?

[MiniPenguinMaker]

I have to admit that I felt a bit miffed when I saw that Elizabeth Fry was being phased out and replaced by Winston Churchill from 2016.

There will be NO women left on British currency. Surely they could find a few? Emmeline Pankhurst perhaps?!

It gives the impression that the achievements of British women are not considered worthy of recognition. I have been getting really grumpy about this. I wonder who makes these decisions and whether this has even occurred to them. Am I being unreasonable to feel peeved that us women make up a significant proportion of the population and yet when we pay for things with our hard-earned cash it is a bunch of dead white men on there?

science can not be the source of knowledge, because they are synonyms - more accurately the word science comes from the Latin word scientia, which means knowledge.

Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and there eyes were opened.

We've all been there, mssampson!!!

Uh-huh.

Mary Anning is also thought to be the subject of the tongue-twister "she sells sea-shells on the sea shore". There that's interesting isn't it

YANBU, there definitely should be women on bank notes. It wouldn't be tokenism, it would be in recognition of the many achievements of women in history and the role we have played

You are wrong, we do have women on the bank notes. mary slessor and elsie inglis.

Not according to the bank of england

says who is on the current notes here

oh, i thought the OP was talking about British women on British currency. didn't know the default for that was england. there are other bank notes in use in the Uk you know.

Begonia, I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't realise that the other banks had different currency. But glad that there are more women on the others! Clearly the Bank of England is particularly behind on this one :-/

Do you think I can stock up on Mary Slessors and use em down here on point of principle?!

PS go Clydesdale Bank! They seem to be the only bank to bother, and both the Mary Slessor and Elsie Inglis notes are theirs.

I thought it was obvious which notes the OP was talking about due to her talking about elizabeth fry and winston churchill.

It's very easy to be completely unaware that Scotland and Northern Ireland use different notes. You only ever see them in London if you work in a shop/pub/restaurant and even then they're pretty rare. I imagine they're less rare in other parts of England. I still doubt the general public would ever really see them since they're never given back out as change - they just go to the bank.

That would still be you amazing.

Surely most of the "general public" in the UK have done shop/pub work at some point? I don't know anyone who hasn't. And of course Scottish notes are legal tender.

My point is that from the OP, it was quite clear that she was talking about English notes, due to who she said were printed on them. And that you are being overly picky.

Or is it your point that as scottish notes have women on them it is OK if notes issued by the BoE do not?

Admittedly you don't get much currency from NI down here.

I further admit that I have no idea who is on their notes.

back to the thread - does it have to be someone British, by law I mean?

Mother Teresa is quite inspirational

NI notes

Not too many women represented.

Yes it has to be someone british.

Although suspect while BoE notes might choose from whole UK, notes issued by other countries will prob only pick people from that country? Happy to be educated on that point.

nice tabard - I looked at the link - George Best made it on to a bank note. ok

BoE rules

"Who decides who the historical figure should be on the back of a new note?
It is the Governor of the Bank of England who makes the final decision. The Bank have celebrated the lives of eminent British personalities on the back of their notes since 1970. It is usual practice to consider a number of probable candidates all of whom have been selected because of their indisputable contribution to their particular field of work and about whom there exists sufficient material on which to base a banknote design."

thanks for that, so although it is the practice to choose British (make sense), it does not seem to exclude non-British persons.

Has anyone mentioned Diana, Princess of Wales?

Or the Duchess of Cambridge?

I'm not rooting for either, but surely that'd be hard to say no to...

was going to mention Marie Curie, but on googling, discovered she was born Polish and subsequently became a French citizen, so not really qualifying under the British banner, shame as she was the first woman to get a nobel prize. Not to mention her discovery of the theory of radioactivity and discovery of radium etc. But there are plenty of British candidates, I second Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Mary Anning as worthy of being on our bank notes. I think its so important to heighten awareness of women achieving in scientific fields. There are quite a number of female scientists who have achieved great things but sadly not famous names to the rest of of us, Mary Somerville and Kathleen Lonsdale to name two, (google is great isnt it!). Digressing somewhat here but it gets fascinating once you delve..... Not that I ever achieved any giddy scientific heights myself, chemistry o level 'c' was the pinnacle of achievement for me!

amazingmum what did either of those women do that showed "indisputable contribution to their particular field of work "?

The queen will at some point be replaced by a king, so there will be one fewer women on there.