THE INVENTION OF BANK NOTES, AND THE FORGERS.
At this time, Britain was at war with France, and the French armies under General Buonaparte were running all over Europe. The Bank of England took fright at the Fishguard invasion, because a similar trial by the French might happen again in England, and be more successful. The war expenses had almost used up the supply of gold. The Bank of England gold coin was the Guinea which was worth twenty one shillings
So the Bank of England decided not to use gold coins any more, and it printed paper Bank notes instead for One Pound, and Two Pounds. These paper notes were printed on special watermarked paper, so they could not be copied. Some of you should remember the Australian Bank notes which were used here before we changed over to the plastic ones, and they had a special panel on them. If you look at the panel on the left side of the brown One Dollar note, you can see the watermark of the head of Lieutenant James Cook who discovered the eastern side of the continent called New Holland in 1770, and who called it New South Wales. The watermark was intended to make it impossible for anybody to print such a note, because they would not have the correct paper for the printing.
But, in 1797, many engravers thought that they might try to make Bank notes as well. They did not have the right paper, but theirs was near enough, and, when the forged notes became dirty, it was hard to see if it had a watermark at all. Now, the Bank of England had been printing Twenty Pound Notes and Five Pound notes for some time before, and coins were used for smaller amounts, and it was harder for forgers to copy the big notes, for they were always examined closely.
It was a serious offence to forge a Bank note, as early as 1697, for, if you were caught and brought before the Court, you would be sentenced to be hanged by the neck until you were dead. And, if you were found to have a forged Bank note, if your excuse or reason was not good enough, you would be transported to Botany Bay in New South Wales for 14 years - no more, no less. People who were not used to handling paper money now did so for the first time. They were often uneducated and, although they could tell a bad coin from a good one, it was different with Bank notes. So they were easily confused by people passing bad notes on them. You may not believe this, but about 600 forgers were caught, and half of them were hanged. And plenty of them were transported for fourteen years. But the forgers still took the risk of not being caught.
If you had a bad forged Bank note and you were ready to take the risk of using it, you might go to the local ironmonger who had a kettle for sale for One shilling. And you might be able to buy it with your dirty One pound note. Then you would set off down the street with your kettle and Nineteen silver shillings in your pocket, and sell that kettle to someone for Sixpence, and then you had Nineteen shillings and Sixpence , almost one week's wages, for nothing - just the risk of being caught. Forgers were also making false coins out of all kinds of metal which looked like silver. They often used lead, but it was easily picked as not being silver, for it was a bit heavier.
The paper Bank notes were kept in use for twenty years before the Bank decided to go back to gold coins again, and it was not until 1817, after Samuel Gilbert had already been transported to New South Wales, that a new gold coin, the Sovereign, was issued to take the place of the old Guinea. The Sovereign was worth One pound or Twenty shillings. A Half Sovereign, worth Ten shillings, was also made in gold.