How valuable was British Pound in early 1800's
How valuable was British Pound in early 1800's
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)?
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.
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.