Coins were first introduced into Jersey in the 1st Century BC. At this early stage coins were simply used in cycles of gift exchange between elites and between elites and their clients.
During the 1st Century BC jersey was located in the middle of a highly significant commercial shipping route between the ports of Alet (St Malo) and Hengistbury Head, in Dorset.
Coins on display at the Jersey Museum
A number of important coin hoards have been discovered in Jersey from this period. One major hoard found at La Marquanderie in St Brelade contained and astonishing 12,000 coins. It is the coins of the Coriosolites that are the most common in Jersey. They were the tribe that occupied north eastern Brittany in the 1st century BC. The wealth of the Coriosolite chieftains was based on the trade of wine and prestige goods and perhaps also on piracy.
In Jersey currency was reckoned in livre tournois, sou and liard until, in 1834 the States adopted the English system of reckoning currency in pounds, shillings and pence. This change in currency took the Islanders some time to adjust to; 520 sous became the equivalent of a British Sovereign. The half-penny and the sou were roughly the same value and as 520 sous made a pound meaning that in Jersey 13 pence made a shilling. It wasn’t until 1876 that the English figure of 12 pennies to the shilling was adopted.
Jersey currently has a reputation as an offshore banking centre, however less well known is the fact that in the 19th century there was also a proliferation of banks in the Island. As well as three principle banks, the Old Bank, the Commercial Bank and The Jersey Banking Company, there was the Jersey Joint Stock Bank, a Methodist concern, the Mercantile Union and the Channel Islands Bank. Each parish also had it’s own bank and a number of private individuals also issued their own bank notes.
This significant number of banks led to a wide variety of different bank notes being issued in Jersey. A large number of these notes now form part of the collections of the Jersey Heritage Trust.
However the days of small private banks in Jersey were numbered as the failure of an owner of firm could very quickly use up the small amount of capital involved. In February 1873 the Mercantile Union Bank closed its doors with liabilities of £300,000 and assets of only £30,000. The Jersey Archive holds the Privy Council Act that confirms the winding up of the Bank in July 1873. The failure of other banks such as the Jersey Banking Company and the Channel Islands Bank followed in the 1880s. In 1886 the Jersey Companies Act led to the surviving banks being taken over by English Banking Companies.
