- by
- 01 28, 2025
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For many centuries using Britain’s currency demanded advanced arithmetic skills. The pound was divided into 20 shillings; a shilling into 12 pennies; and each penny further subdivided into two halfpennies or four farthings. Many argued for a less complex system. As early as 1696 Christopher Wren was arguing that a decimal system would be “very proper for accounts”.Wren eventually got his wish. In 1961 the government dropped the farthing, the spending power of which had fallen by so much that bus conductors were refusing to accept it. A decade later, in 1971, decimalisation divided the pound into 100 new pennies, and shillings and halfpennies both stopped being minted.
