"Wages were paid in pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence (d). A typical working man in the 1840s might earn about 15 shillings (75p in today's money) a week. He would spend about 3 shillings and sixpence (17p) each week on bread and about 2 shillings and sixpence (12p) on rent."
Here we still use pound symbol, and it should be easy to understand that the symbol 's' for shilling, but why symbol 'd' for pence? 'd' is short for 'denarius', that was a roman silver coin.
I often hear people say 'quid', that means one pound. But in Victorian time one pound coin is called sovereign while a paper pound was often called 'quid'.
It seems very difficult to convert Victorian money to today's, I will leave it for later. ^_^
pooey ching chang chong
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