Base Twelve

Empires rise and fall for different reasons. Some collapse within a few years, others slowly decline. The Soviet empire collapsed rapidly; the British Empire fell apart over decades. Britain's decline from being the pre-eminent global superpower in the middle of the 19th century to merely the world's sixth-largest economy isn't over and has many causes. 

But one I'd like to touch on one, which I doubt if any serious historian has picked up on – decimalisation.

When I was in primary school in the 1960s, the British monetary system was vastly more complicated than the decimal one which has been in place since 15 February 1971.

There used to be 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound, so 240 pennies to the pound (but nothing cost, say 126 pennies – it would have been ten shillings and sixpence, or ten and six, expressed as 10/6). 

To make things more complicated, there were also crowns (worth five shillings – so four crowns to the pound); in daily usage, half a crown was worth two shillings and sixpence, and had its own coin in regular circulation, unlike the crown (which was for commemorative issues only). There was also the guinea, worth one pound and one shilling, or 21/-. This unit of account, (expressed as 'gns') would be used for luxury items such as fur coats or up-market home furnishings, as well as for professional fees, and for prizes in horse-racing (the Thousand Guinea Stakes at Newmarket, for example, still raced to this day).

Coins: I don't remember the farthing (quarter of a penny) in circulation, but I certainly remember the halfpenny (pronounced ha'penny). Some of the pennies in my pocket would have born the portrait of Queen Victoria. Large and quite hefty for their value. Then there was the 12-sided threepence coin ('thruppenny bit'), the silver sixpence ('tanner'), the shilling ('bob'), the two shilling bit ('two bob' - not 'two bobs'!) and the half-crown. And then onto paper money - the ten-shilling note (Riches! Not something I'd ever get my hands on while at school).

So - it's all very complicated. And that's the point!

I was surprised to learn on holidaying in Poland in 1966 that Polish children only learnt their multiplication tables to 10, whilst in England, we had to learn them to 12. Up to 144. Extra brain-power, cramming in those 11 and 12-times tables.

What would we buy with our pennies? Sweets, chocolates, soft drinks, crisps...

[I strongly suspect that confectioners were an important part of the dental-industrial complex]

Sweets. Also sold by weight. Pounds and ounces. Sixteen ounces to the pound.

So a quarter-pound of pineapple cubes at 1/2d a pound would cost how much? Thruppence ha'penny. Two ounces of jelly beans at 1/4d a pound would cost how much? Tuppence (two pennies).

These were the sort of mental gymnastics every school child would have to deal with when entering a sweetshop. Have I got enough? Did I get the right change? If you didn't have a firm grasp of the times tables you'd lose out. Everyone did. Greengrocers selling three and half pounds of King Edwards at 4d a pound. Ironmongers selling a gross of three-quarter-inch screws at three bob a gross.  

And then one day, with much publicity, the shillings disappeared, the number of pennies to the pound reduced by a factor of 2.4, and by the end of the 1970s, pounds and ounces gave way to kilos and grams. While in the short term, even more mental arithmetic was required to juggle the old system and the new, in time, it was stripped away. Everything became simple. Sweets and screws were sold in packets (unit price = one packet), meaning you'd have to buy more than you needed of low-value things. Bad for the consumer, good for the producer, good for the shopkeeper.

One of my qualia memories is of entering Tanners confectioners/newsagents /tobacconists on Oaklands Road; the smell of sweets and newsprint, damp cardboard on the floor whenever it rained; the rows and rows of jars of sweets sold by weight; the display of Matchbox die-cast toy cars; newspapers for the grown-ups, comics for us children – pulling out a handful of coins – a 12-sided thruppenny bit, a Queen Victoria penny, almost worn flat, a ha'penny - fourpence ha'penny in total, and working out whether to buy a small chocolate bar and some Black Jacks and Fruit Salad chews, or some American bubblegum with WW2 collectors' cards, or spend the lot on a bag of liquorice twists.

Below: coins from my childhood – top row: pennies from the reign of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, ha'penny from the reign of George V, bottom row, ha'pennies from the reign of George VI before and after he lost the title, Emperor of India (Ind. Imp). 

[According to the Bank of England Inflation Calculator, one pound was worth £17.86 in 2023 money, so one penny had the buying power of 7.5p, a shilling being worth 90p.]

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Pictures in the Winter Sun

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Too good to skip over

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[Apologies to UK readers - the YouTube link is geo-blocked there]

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This time 12 years ago:
Citizen Action Against Rat Runners

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This time 14 years ago:
Building the S79 - Sasanki-Węzeł Lotnisko, midwinter