Dictionary Definition
tenner
Noun
1 the cardinal number that is the sum of nine and
one; the base of the decimal system [syn: ten, 10, X, decade]
2 a United States bill worth 10 dollars [syn:
ten
dollar bill]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- a UK /tɛnə(r)/ /tEn@(r)/
Homophones
Extensive Definition
The Bank of
England is the Central Bank
of the United
Kingdom and one of
eight banks legally authorised to issue banknotes in the UK.
Only Bank of England notes have the status of legal
tender, and only within England and Wales; they are accepted in
Scotland and Northern Ireland along with other notes.
History
The Bank of England has issued banknotes since 1694. The Bank of England has not always had a monopoly of note issue in England and Wales. Until the middle of the Nineteenth Century, private banks in Great Britain and Ireland were free to issue their own banknotes.Provincial banknote issues
Attempts to restrict banknote issue by other banks began in 1708 and 1709, when Acts of Parliament were passed which prohibited companies of more than six people to set up banks and issue notes. Many provincial banks, however, were small enough to escape this prohibtion, and money issued by provincial Englishand Welsh banking companies continued to
circulate freely as a means of payment.
Gold shortages
Gold shortages in the 18th Century caused by the Seven Years' War and war with Revolutionary France began to affect the supply of gold bullion reserves, giving rise to the "Restriction Period". The result was that the Bank was often unable to pay out gold for its notes, and the bank started to issue lower denominations of £1 and £2 notes. Other private note-issuing banks were affected by the gold shortage, with many going out of business, rendering their banknotes worthless. Confidence in the value of banknotes was adversely affected.Restriction of banknote issues
The Country Bankers’ Act 1826 relaxed some of the laws of 1709, allowing joint-stock banks with more than six partners to issue notes, as long as they were over 65 miles from London. This Act also allowed the Bank of England to open branches in major provincial cities, enabling better distribution for its notes (Scottish notes were not included in the 1833 or 1954 acts).Note-issuing monopoly
The Bank Charter Act 1844 began the process which gave the Bank of England exclusive note-issuing powers. Under the Act, no new banks could start issuing notes, and note-issuing banks were barred form expanding their note issue. Gradually, these banks vanished through mergers and closures and their note-issuing powers went with them. The last privately-issued banknotes in Wales were withdrawn in 1908 upon the closure of the last Welsh bank, the North and South Wales Bank, and the last private English banknotes were issued in 1921 by Fox, Fowler and Company, a Somerset bankThe Bank of England Series D one pound note was
discontinued in 1984, having been
replaced by a pound
coin the year before, and was officially withdrawn from
circulation in 1988.
All banknotes, regardless of when they were
withdrawn from circulation may be presented at the Bank of England
where they will be exchanged for current banknotes and coin. In
most cases this is done on the spot; however, the issues
counterfeited by the Germans must be authenticated. In practice,
commercial banks will accept most banknotes from their customers
and negotiate them with the Bank of England themselves.
Higher-value notes are used within the banking
system – particularly the £1 million and £100 million
notes used to maintain parity with Scottish and Northern Irish
notes. These resemble simple IOUs and bear no aesthetic design
features, and are never seen by the public.
Denominations
10/-
The Bank of England's first ever ten shilling note was issued on 22 November 1928. This note featured a vignette of Britannia, a feature of the Bank's notes since 1694. The predominant colour was red-brown. Unlike previous notes it, and the contemporaneous £1 note, were not dated but are instead identified by the signature of the Chief Cashier of the time. In 1940 a metal security thread was introduced for the first time, and the colour of the note was changed to mauve for the duration of the war. The original design of the note was replaced by the "Series C" design in 1961, when Queen Elizabeth II agreed to allow the use of her portrait on the notes. The ten shilling note was withdrawn following the introduction in 1969 of the fifty pence coin.£1
The first Bank of England £1 note was issued on 26 February 1797 under the direction of Thomas Raikes, Governor of the Bank of England and according to the orders of the government of William Pitt The Younger, in response to the need for smaller denomination banknotes to replace gold coin during the French Revolutionary WarsThe Bank of England's first one pound note since
1845 was issued on 22 November
1928. This
note featured a vignette of Britannia, a
feature of the Bank's notes since 1694. The predominant colour was
green. Unlike previous notes it, and the contemporaneous ten
shilling note, were not dated but are instead identified by the
signature of the Chief Cashier of the time. In 1940 a metal
security thread was introduced for the first time, and the colour
of the note was changed to pink for the duration of the war. The
original design of the note was replaced by the "Series C" design
in 1960, when Queen Elizabeth II agreed to allow the use of her
portrait on the notes. In 1978 the "Series D" design (known as the
"Pictorial Series") featuring Sir Isaac Newton
on the reverse was issued, but following the introduction in 1983
of the One
Pound coin, the note was withdrawn from circulation in summer
1988.
£2
The first Bank of England £2 note was issued on 26 February 1797 under the direction of Thomas Raikes, Governor of the Bank of England and according to the orders of the government of William Pitt The Younger, in response to the need for smaller denomination banknotes to replace gold coin during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was later discontinued.£5
The first Bank of England £5 note was issued in 1793 in response to the need for smaller denomination banknotes to replace gold coin during the French Revolutionary Wars (previously the smallest note issued had been £10). The 1793 design, latterly known as the "White Fiver" (black printing on white paper), remained in circulation essentially unchanged until 1957 when the multicoloured (although predominantly dark blue) "Series B" note, depicting the helmeted Britannia was introduced. This note was replaced in turn in 1963 by the "Series C" £5 note which for the first time introduced the portrait of the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, to the £5 note (the Queen's portrait having first appeared on the Series C ten shilling and one pound notes issued in 1960). In 1971 the "Series D" pictorial £5 note was issued, showing a slightly older portrait of the Queen and a battle scene featuring the Duke of Wellington on the reverse. On 7 June 1990 the "Series E" £5 note, by now the smallest denomination issued by the Bank, was issued. The Series E note (known as the "Historical Series") changed the colour of the denomination to a turquoise blue, and incorporated design elements to make photocopying and computer reproduction of the notes more difficult. Initially the reverse of the Series E £5 note featured the railway engineer George Stephenson, but on 21 May 2002 a new Series E note was produced featuring the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. The initial printing of several million Stephenson notes was destroyed when it was noticed that the wrong year for his death had been printed. The original issue of the Fry banknote was withdrawn after it was found the ink on the serial number could be rubbed off the surface of the note. The Stephenson £5 note was withdrawn as legal tender from 21 October 2003, at which time it formed around 54 million of the 211 million £5 notes in circulation.£10
The first ten pound note was issued in 1759, when the Seven Years War caused severe gold shortages. Following the withdrawal of the denomination after the Second World War, it was not reintroduced until the Series C design of the mid 1960s produced the brown ten pound note. The Series D pictorial note appeared in 1975, featuring nurse Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) on the reverse, plus a scene showing her work at the army hospital in Scutari during the Crimean War. This note was subsequently replaced in the early 1990s by the Series E note, where the predominant colour was changed from brown to orange. The reverse of the first Series E £10 featured Charles Dickens and a scene from the Pickwick Papers (this note was withdrawn from circulation in July 2003), while a second Series E note was issued in 2000 featuring Charles Darwin, the HMS Beagle, a hummingbird, and flowers under a magnifying glass, illustrating the Origin of Species.£20
After the Second World
War, the £20 denomination did not reappear until Series D in
the early 1970s. The predominant colour of this denomination is
purple. The reverse of the Series D £20 features a statue of
William
Shakespeare and the balcony scene from Romeo and
Juliet. In 1992 this note was replaced by the first Series E
note, featuring the physicist Michael
Faraday and the Royal Institution lectures. By 1999 this note
had been extensively copied, and therefore it became the first
denomination to be replaced by a second Series E design, featuring
a bolder denomination figure at the top left of the obverse side,
and a reverse side featuring the composer Sir Edward Elgar
and Worcester
Cathedral.
In February 2006, the Bank announced a
new design for the note which featured Scottish economist
Adam
Smith with a drawing of a pin factory - the institution which
supposedly inspired his theory of economics. Smith is the first
Scot to appear on a Bank of England note, although the economist has already appeared
on Scottish Clydesdale
Bank £50 notes. The design of the £20 note was controversial
for two reasons: the choice of a Scottish figure on an English note
was a break with tradition; and the removal of Elgar took place in
the year of the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, causing
a group of English MPs to table a motion in the House
of Commons calling for the new design to be delayed . The new
note entered circulation on 13 March
2007
£50
The fifty pound denomination did not reappear until 1981 when a Series D design was issued featuring the architect Christopher Wren and the plan of Saint Paul's Cathedral on the reverse of this large note. In 1994 this denomination was the last of the Series E issue, when the Bank commemorated its own impending tercentenary by putting its first governor, Sir John Houblon on the reverse.£100
The Bank of England does not currently issue £100 notes; however several banks issue this denomination in Northern Ireland and Scotland.£1,000,000 and £100,000,000
Most of the bank notes issued by the banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland are required to be backed pound for pound by Bank of England notes. Due to the large number of notes issued by these banks it would be cumbersome and wasteful to hold Bank of England notes in the standard denominations. High denomination notes, for one million pounds ("Giants") and one hundred million pounds ("Titans"), are used for this purpose. These are used only internally within the Bank and are never seen in circulation.Counterfeits and old notes
During the Second World War the German Operation Bernhard attempted to counterfeit various denominations between £5 and £50 producing 500,000 notes each month in 1943. The original plan was to parachute the money on Britain in an attempt to destabilise the British economy, but it was found more useful to use the notes to pay German agents operating throughout Europe — although most fell into Allied hands at the end of the war, forgeries were frequently appearing for years afterwards, so all denominations of banknote above £5 were subsequently removed from circulation.All old Bank of England notes remain exchangeable
for current notes forever. Forgeries however will be retained and
destroyed by the Bank (including Bernhard notes). If a suspect note
is found to be genuine a full refund by cheque will be made.
However it is a criminal offence to knowingly hold or pass a forged
bank note. Notes can either be taken in person to the Bank in
Threadneedle
Street, London during normal business hours, or sent by post at
the sender's risk to either:
In popular culture
- The 2007 film, The Counterfeiters tells the story of Salomon Sorowitsch, a Jewish forger who is put to work forging Bank of England notes on Operation Bernhard in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
- Mark Twain's short story, The £1,000,000 Bank Note deals with an impoverished American in London who is given the use of a million-pound Bank of England note for thirty days--two Englishmen betting whether or not he will be able to survive on a note for which he cannot possibly be given change. He does succeed in surviving, quite well, and marries one of the bettors' daughters. The story was also made into a 1953 film, The Million Pound Note stars Gregory Peck
- A fictionalized version of the Operation Bernhard story was the topic of a comedy drama serial Private Schulz (starring Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson) produced by the BBC in 1980.