To celebrate its 325th anniversary the bank has raided its archives for 325 objects that are broadly representative of its history
AN ALIEN ARRIVING on Earth might be mystified by the bits of paper, plastic and metal that humans treat with such reverence. Why should some objects but not others count as money? Today, when many currencies are stable and trusted, it seems easy to forget that money involves a confidence trick, pulled off by governments and central banks. A new exhibition at the Bank of England Museum is a reminder of the efforts both to establish and subvert the idea of money over time.
The central bank turns 325 this year. To celebrate this anniversary the bank has raided its archives for 325 objects that are broadly representative of its history . Unsurprisingly, many of the objects on display are money or ways of accounting for it. A tally stick dates from 1694, the year of the bank’s founding.
Evidence of more organised attempts to subvert the bank’s money supply is also on show. There are templates for banknotes commissioned, but never issued, by Prince Charles Edward Stuart to fund the expenses of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. There are notes counterfeited as part of Operation Bernhard, a Nazi plot to introduce fake notes to Britain, which prompted the bank to withdraw high-value notes from circulation for a time.
Other objects cast light on the bank as a place of work, and as a reflection of British society. There is an emphasis on the role of women at the bank, from a diary of a clerk doing junior “soul-destroying” tasks at the turn of the 20th century to banknotes signed by the first female chief cashier in 1999. A radiation counter from the 1950s and plans to counter the millennium bug provide reminders of physical and digital threats of the past.
There are perhaps more coins and bills on display than most people would care to inspect, even though a £100m banknote and a cheque for £2bn might raise some eyebrows. One of the central exhibits, an especially commissioned artwork, is an origami bouquet of flowers, made with discarded banknotes. In itself it may seem rather underwhelming, but it underlines the strangeness of money: bits of ordinary-looking paper that, in a suspension of collective disbelief, are coveted.
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