Not only was Queen Elizabeth II the face of UK currency, but she was also “in for a penny, in for a pound“.
This phase sums up a sterling reign, who was the Queen of the UK from February 6, 1952, until her death on September 8, 2022.
Curious financial aspects:
Queen Elizabeth II’s image featured on British currency and postage stamps.
And the economy is around five times bigger now than when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952, according to PwC.
Currency
According to the Royal Mint Museum, all the coins in the UK have a picture of the Queen on one side, but did you know that this portrait has changed five times during her 70-year reign?
The Mint says the Queen faces right on her coins, which is part of a tradition which had lasted for more than 300 years. Each King or Queen faces in the opposite direction to the one before.
According to Guinness World Records, the Queen’s image features on the currency of 35 countries worldwide – more than any other monarch.
These include Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Fiji and Cyprus, where she appears on some notes and coins due to her position as head of the Commonwealth.
A new design for one pound notes was introduced in 1960, with the old notes ceasing to be legal tender in 1962.
These new series C notes were slightly narrower and were the first one-pound notes to feature a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the front.
There are some 4.5bn sterling notes in circulation featuring the Queen’s face on them, worth a combined £80 billion (R1.6 trillion.)
Economy in Queen Elizabeth II’s lifetime:
Ahead of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which were held earlier this year, the PwC looked at some key economic indicators to see how the UK economy today compares to 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.
Jake Finney, an economist at PwC, said at the time: “The economy is around five times bigger now than when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952. Over the same period, the population increased by around a third, which implies average incomes are almost four times higher in real terms. This is equivalent to an increase in GDP (gross domestic product) per capita from around £8.5k in 1952 to £32.6k now.
PwC said CPI inflation was at 11.2 percent during the Queen’s accession in February 1952, 2.2 percentage points higher than the 9 percent recorded in April 2022.
In the 1950s, it was the Korean War that sent commodity prices spiralling, while today, it is the war in Ukraine that has had the same effect.
“We expect that it will take around three years in total for inflation to return to target, which is a similar length to the inflationary episode of the early 1950s when the Queen took the throne,” Finney said.
BUSINESS REPORT