How valuable was British Pound in early 1800's

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Ike_FI
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Location: Helsinki. Finland

How valuable was British Pound in early 1800's

#1

Post by Ike_FI » 31 Dec 2002, 23:33

I'm just interested - according to some old family documents a distant relative of mine inherited a few hundred pounds from GB during the first half of 19th century (he was living already in Finlad by then) and I don't know how it compares to current currencies. What could one purchase by one/ten/hundred pounds in Britain at that age (let's forget that in foreign countries the rate would be different for a moment)?

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Lord Gort
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#2

Post by Lord Gort » 01 Jan 2003, 20:24

I know from Roy Jenkins biography on Sir Winston Churchill that in 1900 Churchill bought a passage for india for £25, in the book it said this was the equivilent of £1000 in todays money.


Thats the only help i can give. Sorry.


arwel
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#3

Post by arwel » 04 Jan 2003, 05:56

Here's a House of Commons Library research paper on the value of the Pound between 1750 and 1998:

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/re ... 99-020.pdf

The index value for 1800 is 13.3 (which was quite a high value because of the Napoleonic wars - it was back down to 8.7 by 1822, and was still only 17.1 in 1939), while for 1998 the index is 592.3, so roughly £1 in 1800 had the purchasing power of about £44.50 in 1998.

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Ike_FI
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#4

Post by Ike_FI » 08 Jan 2003, 14:47

Thanks for both of you for the info!

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