Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
After decades of featuring prominent historical figures, the Bank of England will now celebrate British wildlife instead.
For nearly a decade, Britain’s cash has carried the faces of its most celebrated figures: a wartime prime minister, a novelist, a painter and a code-breaking mathematician.
The next generation of Bank of England notes will look very different.
On Thursday, the central bank announced that the £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes currently showing Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner and Alan Turing will be replaced in the coming years by four species of British wildlife.
The chosen quartet is the Atlantic puffin, the barn owl, the buff-tailed bumblebee and the European hedgehog. The reigning monarch will still appear on every note.
The selection follows the Bank’s largest-ever public consultation on banknote imagery. Nearly half a million people responded, picking favorites from a shortlist of 18 native species that wildlife experts drew up across three categories: mammals, birds, and amphibians, insects and fish.
How the four were chosen
The barn owl was the public’s top bird, the buff-tailed bumblebee the top of the combined amphibians, insects and fish group and the European hedgehog the top mammal.
The Atlantic puffin was added as the most popular marine species, so the final line-up would cover different UK environments, according to the Bank.
“I am delighted that nearly half a million people responded to our wildlife imagery consultation, showing that cash still matters,” Victoria Cleland, the Bank of England’s chief cashier, said in the announcement.
The second-stage consultation, run between June 3 and July 3, followed an earlier survey in which 60 percent of respondents picked “nature” as their preferred theme, ahead of architecture and landmarks.
The shortlist of 18 ranged from the brown hare and grey seal to the common kingfisher, white-tailed eagle and basking shark.
No date yet for the first new note
The Bank has not said which animal will appear on which denomination, or when the first redesigned note will reach wallets. Incoming chief cashier Rhys Phillips said the Bank will now move into “designing, testing and producing the banknotes,” a process that typically takes several years.
The wildlife theme marks the first time since paper notes carried only Britannia that the Bank has moved away from historical figures.
The current series launched in 2016, when Churchill replaced social reformer Elizabeth Fry on the £5.
Existing Churchill, Austen, Turner and Turing notes will remain legal tender until the Bank withdraws them, as will polymer notes still featuring the late Queen Elizabeth II alongside King Charles III designs.
