The Coinage Act 1816 (56 Geo. III c.68), also known as Liverpool's Act, defined the value of the

pound sterling Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and ...

relative to

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

. One

troy pound Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England, and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and th ...

of standard (22- carat) gold was defined as equivalent to £46 14''s'' 6''d''., i.e. , the guinea having been fixed in December 1717 at exactly. According to its preamble, the purposes of the Act were to: * prohibit the use of silver coins (which would now be of reduced weight, rather than per troy pound), for transactions larger than 40''s'' * establish a single

gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the l ...

for transactions of all sizes.

References

External links

Text as originally enacted

The Royal Mint - official website

The Royal Mint - official blog
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1816 Repealed United Kingdom Acts of Parliament History of British coinage Gold legislation 1816 in economics Gold standard Currencies of the United Kingdom Gold in the United Kingdom Currency law in the United Kingdom {{UK-statute-stub

See also

References

External links