The pound was the currency of

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

until 1970. It was equivalent to sterling, alongside which it circulated, and was similarly divided into 20

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

s each of 12 pence. Bermuda decimalised in 1970, replacing the pound with the

Bermudian dollar The Bermudian dollar (symbol: $; code: BMD; also abbreviated BD$; informally called the Bermuda dollar) is the official currency of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is subdivided into 100 cents. The Bermudian dollar is not n ...

at a rate of $1 = 8s.4d. (i.e., $1 = 100d), equal to the

US dollar The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

Coins

The first Bermudian currency issue was the so-called "hogge money", 2d, 3d and 6d, and 1/– coins issued between 1612 and 1624. Their name derives from the appearance of a pig on the obverse. At this time, Bermuda was known as Somers Island (which is still an official name) and this name appears on the coins. The next coins to be issued were copper pennies in 1793. When Bermuda adopted the sterling currency system in the first half of the nineteenth century, the coinage that circulated was exactly the standard sterling coinage that circulated in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. No special varieties of coinage were ever issued for general use in

. However, special silver crowns (five shillings) were issued in 1959 and again in 1964. These commemoratives were similar in appearance to the British crowns, but featured Bermudian designs on their reverses. The first issue has a map of the islands to mark their 350th anniversary of settlement. The second coin shows the islands'

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

.Bermuda 1964 Crown
/ref> Because of the rising price of precious metals, the diameter of the 1964 issue was reduced from 38 to 36 millimeters and the silver content dropped from 92.5% to 50%. Their respective mintages were 100,000 and 500,000 (30,000 of the latter being issued in proof). Both coins remain readily available to collectors.

Banknotes

In 1914, the government introduced £1 notes. In 1920, 5/– notes were introduced, followed by 10/– in 1927 and £5 in 1941. The 5/– note ceased production in 1957, with £10 notes introduced in 1964.

History

For nearly four hundred years

Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It w ...

s, known as

pieces of eight The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It wa ...

, were in widespread use on the world's trading routes, including the Caribbean Sea region. However, following the revolutionary wars in Latin America, the source of these silver trade coins dried up. The last

was minted at the Potosi mint in 1825. The

had adopted a very successful gold standard in 1821, and so the year 1825 was an opportune time to introduce the British sterling coinage into all the British colonies. An imperial order-in-council was passed in that year for the purposes of facilitating this aim by making sterling coinage legal tender in the colonies at the specified rating of $1 = 4s.4d. (One Spanish dollar to four shillings and four pence sterling). As the sterling silver coins were attached to a gold standard, this exchange rate did not realistically represent the value of the silver in the

Spanish dollars The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It wa ...

as compared to the value of the gold in the British gold sovereign, and as such, the order-in-council had the reverse effect in many colonies. It had the effect of actually driving sterling coinage out, rather than encouraging its circulation. Remedial legislation had to be introduced in 1838 so as to change over to the more realistic rating of $1 = 4s.2d. However, in

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

British Honduras British Honduras was a Crown colony on the east coast of Central America — specifically located on the southern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony — renamed Belize from June 1973

, and later in the

Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ...

also, the official rating was set aside in favour of what was known as the 'Maccaroni' tradition in which a sterling shilling, referred to as a 'Maccaroni', was treated as one quarter of a dollar. The common link between these four territories was the

Bank of Nova Scotia The Bank of Nova Scotia (), operating as Scotiabank (), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. One of Canada's Big Five banks, it is the third-largest Canadian bank by deposits and ...

which brought in the 'Maccaroni' tradition, resulting in the successful introduction of both sterling coinage and sterling accounts. It wasn't until 1 January 1842 that the authorities in

formally decided to make sterling the official currency of the colony to circulate concurrently with

Doubloon The doubloon (from Spanish language, Spanish ''doblón'', or "double", i.e. ''double escudo'') was a two-''Spanish escudo, escudo'' gold coin worth approximately four Spanish dollars or 32 ''Spanish real, reales'', and weighing 6.766 grams (0.218 ...

s (64 shillings) at the rate of $1 = 4s.2d. Contrary to expectations, and unlike in the

where

US dollars The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

circulated concurrently with sterling, the Bermudas did not allow themselves to be drawn into the U.S. currency area. The

s fell away in the 1850s but returned again in the 1870s following the international silver crisis of 1873. In 1874, the Bermuda merchants agreed unanimously to decline to accept the heavy imports of U.S. currency except at a heavy discount, and it was then exported again. And in 1876, legislation was passed to demonetize the silver dollars. In 1882, the local 'legal tender act' demonetized the gold

doubloon The doubloon (from Spanish language, Spanish ''doblón'', or "double", i.e. ''double escudo'') was a two-''Spanish escudo, escudo'' gold coin worth approximately four Spanish dollars or 32 ''Spanish real, reales'', and weighing 6.766 grams (0.218 ...

, which had in effect been the real standard in Bermuda, and this left sterling as the sole legal tender. Sterling then remained the official currency of

until 1970. Due to the collapse of sterling as the world's reserve currency and the rise of the

, Bermuda introduced a dollar based currency that was fixed at an equal value to the US dollar. The new Bermuda dollars operated in conjunction with decimal fractional coinage, hence ending the

£sd file:Guildhall Museum Collection- Drusilla Dunford Money Table Sampler 3304.JPG, A Sampler (needlework), sampler in the Rochester Guildhall, Guildhall Museum of Rochester, Medway, Rochester illustrates the conversion between pence and shillings ...

system in that colony in the year before it was ended in the

itself. The decision to finally align with the

was at least in part influenced by the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and Bermuda's increasing tendency to keep its reserves in US dollars. Although Bermuda changed to a U.S. based currency and changed the bulk of its reserves from sterling to U.S. dollars in 1970, it still nevertheless remained a member of the

sterling area The sterling area (or sterling bloc, legally scheduled territories) was a group of countries that either adopted or pegged their currencies to the pound sterling. The area began to appear informally during the early 1930s, after sterling had l ...

since at that time, sterling and the

had a fixed exchange rate of £1 = $2.40. Following the

crisis of 1971 which ended the international Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, the

devalued, but the Bermuda dollar maintained its link to sterling. On 22 June 1972, the

unilaterally ended its

based exchange control laws, hence excluding

from its

membership privileges. Bermuda responded on 30 June 1972 by amending its own exchange control laws accordingly, such as to impose exchange control restrictions in relation to Bermuda only. At the same time,

realigned its dollar back to one-to-one with the

and formally pegged it to the

at that rate. As far as

law was concerned,

still remained a member of the overseas

until exchange controls were abolished altogether in 1979.

References

Bibliography

* Chalmers, R., "A History of Currency in the British Colonies" (1893) * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bermudian Pound Currencies of the British Empire Economy of Bermuda Currencies of North America Modern obsolete currencies 1970 disestablishments Pound (currency)