Decimal Day
Decimal Day in the United Kingdom and in Ireland was on 15 February 1971, the day on which each country decimalised its respective £sd currency of pounds, shillings, and pence. Before this date, in the United Kingdom, the British pound was made up of 20 shillings, each of which was made up of 12 pence, a total of 240 pence. With the decimalisation, the pound kept its old value and name, and the only changes were in relation to the subunits. The shilling was abolished, and the pound was subdivided into 100 "new pence", each of which was worth 2.4 "old pence". In Ireland, the Irish pound had a similar £sd currency structure and similar changes took place.
United Kingdom
Background
The Russian ruble was the first European decimal currency, dating to 1704, though China had been using a decimal system for at least 2000 years. The Coinage Act of 1792 officially authorised the United States to have a decimal currency, the first English-speaking country to have one. The decimal French franc was introduced in 1795.The United Kingdom Parliament rejected Sir John Wrottesley's proposals to decimalise sterling in 1824, which was prompted by the introduction of the French franc. After that defeat, little practical progress towards decimalisation was made for over a century, with the exception of the two-shilling silver florin, which was first issued in 1849. A double florin or four-shilling piece was a further step in that direction but failed to gain acceptance and was struck only from 1887 to 1890.
The Decimal Association was founded in 1841 to promote decimalisation and metrication, both causes that were boosted by a realisation of the importance of international trade following the 1851 Great Exhibition. It was as a result of the growing interest in decimalisation that the florin was issued.
In their preliminary report, the Royal Commission on Decimal Coinage considered the benefits and problems of decimalisation but did not draw any conclusion about the adoption of any such scheme. A final report in 1859 from the two remaining commissioners, Lord Overstone and Governor of the Bank of England John Hubbard came out against the idea by claiming that it had "few merits".
In 1862, the Select committee on Weights and Measures favoured the introduction of decimalisation to accompany the introduction of metric weights and measures.
The Royal Commission on Decimal Coinage, chaired by Lord Emmott, reported in 1920 that the only feasible scheme was to divide the pound into 1,000 mills but that it would be too inconvenient. A minority of four members said that the disruption would be worthwhile. A further three members recommended that the pound should be replaced by the royal, consisting of 100 halfpennies and so there would be 4.8 royals to the former pound.
In 1960, a report prepared jointly by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, followed by the success of decimalisation in South Africa, prompted the Government to set up the Committee of the Inquiry on Decimal Currency in 1961, which reported in 1963. The adoption of the changes suggested in the report was announced on 1 March 1966. The Decimal Currency Board was created to manage the transition, but the plans were not approved by Parliament until the Decimal Currency Act in May 1969. The former Greater London Council leader Bill Fiske was named as the Chairman of the Decimal Currency Board.
Consideration was given to introducing a new major unit of currency worth ten shillings in the old currency. Suggested names included the new pound, the royal and the noble. It would have resulted in the "decimal penny" being worth only slightly more than the old penny. However, Halsbury decided that the pound sterling's importance as a reserve currency meant that the pound should remain unchanged.
Preparation
Under the new system, the pound was retained but was divided into 100 new pence, denoted by the symbol p. New coinage was issued alongside the old coins. The 5p and 10p coins were introduced in April 1968 and were the same size, composition and value as the shilling and two shillings coins in circulation with them. In October 1969, the 50p coin was introduced, with the 10s note withdrawn on 20 November 1970. That reduced the number of new coins that had to be introduced on Decimal Day and meant that the public was already familiar with three of the six new coins. Small booklets were made available, containing some or all of the new denominations.The old halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation on 31 July 1969, and the half-crown followed on 31 December to ease the transition.
There was a substantial publicity campaign in the weeks before Decimalisation Day, including a song by Max Bygraves called "Decimalisation". The BBC broadcast a series of five-minute programmes, "Decimal Five", to which The Scaffold contributed some specially-written tunes. ITV repeatedly broadcast a short drama called Granny Gets The Point, starring Doris Hare, the actress in On The Buses in which an elderly woman who does not understand the new system is taught to use it by her grandson. At 10 am on 15 February itself and again the following week, BBC1 broadcast 'New Money Day', a 'Merry-go-Round' schools' programme in which puppet maker Peter Firmin and his small friend Muskit encountered different prices and new coins when they went to the shops.
Banks received stocks of the new coins in advance, which were issued to retailers shortly before Decimalisation Day to enable them to give change immediately after the changeover. Banks were closed from 3:30 pm on Wednesday 10 February 1971 to 10:00 am on Monday 15 February to enable all outstanding cheques and credits in the clearing system to be processed and customers' account balances to be converted from £sd to decimal. In many banks, the conversion was done manually, as few bank branches were then computerised. February had been chosen for Decimal Day because it was the quietest time of the year for the banks, shops and transport organisations.
Many items were priced in both currencies for some time before and after the change. Prior to Decimal Day, the double pricing had been displayed as, for example, 1s . On Decimal Day, the order was switched to 5p . For example, the latter order was used on most football programmes during the 1970–71 season. High denomination stamps were issued on 17 June 1970. Post offices were issued with very simple training stamps in the same colours as the upcoming decimal stamps.
Exceptions to the 15 February introduction were British Rail and London Transport, which went decimal one day early, the former urging customers, if they chose to use pennies or threepenny pieces, to pay them in multiples of 6d. Bus companies, many of which were state-owned by the National Bus Company, were another exception and went decimal on 21 February.
After Decimal Day
Decimal Day itself went smoothly. Criticisms included the small size of the new halfpenny coin and the fact that some traders had taken advantage of the transition to raise prices, but the overall price adjustments slightly favoured the consumer. Some used new pennies as sixpences in vending machines. After 15 February, shops continued to accept payment in old coins but always issued change in new coins. The old coins were returned to the banks and so most of them were quickly taken out of circulation.The new halfpenny, penny, and twopence coins were introduced on 15 February 1971. Within two weeks of Decimal Day, the old penny and old threepenny coins had left circulation, and old sixpences were becoming rare. On 31 August 1971, the 1d and 3d were officially withdrawn from circulation, which ended the transition period.
The government intended that in speech the new units would be called "new pence", but the public decided that it was clearer and quicker to pronounce the new coins as "pee". Shortenings such as "tuppence" are now rarely heard, and terms such as "tanner", which previously designated amounts of money, are no longer used. However, some slang terms, such as "quid" and "bob", survived from predecimal times. Amounts denominated in guineas are reserved for specialist transactions, such as the sale of horses and some auctions.
The public information campaign over the preceding two years helped, as well as the trick of getting a rough conversion of new pence into old shillings and pence by simply doubling the number of new pence and placing a solidus, or slash, between the digits: 17p multiplied by 2 = 34, – approximately equal to 3/4, with a similar process for the reverse conversion. The willingness of a young population to embrace the change also helped. In general, elderly people had more difficulty adapting and the phrase "How much is that in old money?" or even "How much is that in real money?" became associated with those who struggled with the change.
Around Decimal Day, "Decimal Adders" and other converters were available to help people convert between the old and new coins. The following is a table showing conversions between the decimal and pre-decimal systems.
| Pre-decimal | Pre-decimal | Decimal |
| Common name | Amount | Decimal |
| Farthing | d | s ≈ 0.104p |
| Halfpenny | d | s ≈ 0.208p |
| Penny | 1d | s ≈ 0.417p |
| Threepence | 3d | p |
| Sixpence | 6d | p |
| Shilling | 1/- | 5p |
| Florin/Two shillings | 2/- | 10p |
| Half crown | 2/6 | p |
| Crown | 5/- | 25p |
| Pound | 20/- | £1 = 100p |
| Guinea | 21/- | £1.05 = 105p |
Validity of old coins
All pre-decimal coins are now no longer legal tender. Public outcry at the proposed demise of the old sixpence, worth exactly p and originally slated for early withdrawal, postponed its withdrawal until June 1980.Shillings and florins, together with their same-sized 5p and 10p coin equivalents, coexisted in circulation as valid currency until the early 1990s. In theory, that included coins dating back to 1816, but in practice the oldest were dated 1947, when those coins stopped containing silver. The coins were withdrawn when smaller 5p and 10p coins were introduced in 1990 and 1992, respectively.
The face value of Maundy money coins was maintained, increasing all their face values by a factor of 2.4, as the coins continued to be legal tender as new pence. The numismatic value of each coin, though, greatly exceeds face value.
All predecimal crowns remain legal tender, with a face value of 25p.
Subsequent changes
The decimal halfpenny, which had been introduced in 1971, remained in circulation until 1984, when its value had been greatly reduced by inflation. It was not struck except for collectors' sets after 1983 and was demonetised on 31 December 1984. The 50p piece was reduced in size in 1997, following the reduction in size of the 5p in 1990 and the 10p in 1992. The 1p and 2p underwent a compositional change from bronze to plated steel in 1992. However, both coins remain valid back to 1971, the only circulating coins on Decimal Day that are still valid.In 1982, the word "new" in "new penny" or "new pence" was removed from the inscriptions on coins and was replaced by the number of pence in the denomination. That coincided with the introduction of a new 20p coin, which from the outset bore simply the legend "twenty pence".
A £1 coin was introduced in 1983, and a £2 coin in 1997.
Republic of Ireland
When the old £sd system was in operation, the United Kingdom and Ireland operated within the Sterling area, effectively a single monetary area. The Irish pound was created as a separate currency in 1927 with distinct coins and notes, but the terms of the Irish Currency Act obliged the Irish currency commissioners to redeem Irish pounds on a fixed 1:1 basis, and so day-to-day banking operations continued exactly as they had been before the creation of the Irish pound. The Irish pound was decimalised on 15 February 1971, the same date as the British pound.This arrangement continued until 1979 when Irish obligations to the European Monetary System led to Ireland breaking the historic link with Sterling.
In Ireland, all pre-decimal coins, except the 1s, 2s and 10s coins, were called in during the initial process between 1969 and 1972; the ten shilling coin, which, as recently issued and in any event equivalent to 50p, was permitted to remain outstanding. The 1s and 2s were recalled in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Pre-decimal Irish coins may still be redeemed at their face value equivalent in Euros at the Central Bank in Dublin.
Pre-decimal Irish coins and stamps' values were denoted with Irish language abbreviations and pingin ) rather than abbreviations derived from the Latin solidi and denarii used in other Sterling countries. Irish people and business otherwise used "£sd" just as in other countries. Thus, prior to decimalisation, coins were marked '1p', '3p' etc. rather '1d' and '3d' as in Britain. Low-value Irish postage stamps likewise used 'p' rather than 'd'; so a two-penny stamp was marked '2p' in Ireland rather than '2d' as in the UK. After decimalisation, while British stamps switched from 'd' to 'p', Irish stamps printed the number with no accompanying letter; so a stamp worth 2 new pence was marked '2p' in the UK and simply '2' in Ireland.