Bank of England

The Bank of England, also known affectionately as The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, was founded in 1694 as a means to mobilise the nation's resources at a time when the economy was weak and when money was needed to support its defences. It was the Government's banker as well as acting as a commercial bank and note issuer.

With the various wars fought in the 18th century the Government has to borrow more and more. This became known as the National Debt, which was managed by the Bank. By 1797, gold reserves has been depleted to such an extent that the Bank was prohibited from issuing gold, which continued until 1821.

The 1844 Bank Charter Act tied the issue of notes to the gold reserves and gave it sole rights with regard to the issue of banknotes. Existing Private banks could still issue their own notes under certain conditions. English Banks continued to issue notes until 1931 and the Scottish and Northern Irish private banks still do so. The early 20th century saw the Bank move away from commercial banking and become a central bank. The post was Labour Government nationalised it in 1946.

Ironically it was another Labour Government that granted the Bank of England operational independence over monetary policy in 1997.

The banking crisis that erupted in 2007 resulted in the Bank of England, in its role as lender of last resort, supporting Northern Rock. The Bank of England states as its core purposes the ensuring of monetary stability and contribution to monetary stability. As part of this, since 2009 it has reduced interest rates and been undergoing a process of what is called quantitative easing whereby it has been injecting money directly into the economy to maintain the inflation target of 2%.

The notes in this section are sorted by the individual Chief Cashiers. A short biography is also provided of each.

Each banknote has a reference that elates to its classification in 3 different publications. The first, with prefix P relates to the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money edited by George S Cuhaj. The second, with prefix B, relates to English Paper Money written by Vincent Duggleby and the third, with prefix BE relates to the Banknote Yearbook edited by John Mussell.