Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:41:51.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bills, notes and money in early New South Wales, 1788–1822

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2010

Frank Decker
Frank Decker*
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article provides a revised account of the development of financial instruments, money and banking in the early penal colony of New South Wales. It is found that private instruments monetised the economy, while the role of state debt, coin and commodities was to finally settle remaining balances. Money originated in the form of small merchant notes. These were created by the need to pay labourers and underpinned a local pound currency standard. A detailed review of colonial court cases and currency legislation reveals that the first bank was founded, contrary to colonial orders, to remove the disruptive impact of exchange rate fluctuations and to achieve a stable private note issue at par with pound sterling bills on London.

Keywords

monetisationcolonial currenciesorigins of policyproperty economics

JEL classification

E42: Monetary Systems • Standards • Regimes • Government and the Monetary System • Payment Systems
Type
Articles
Information
Financial History Review , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , April 2011 , pp. 71 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V. 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bigge, J. T. (1822). Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales. Reprinted 1966. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia.Google Scholar
Bigge, J. T. (1823). Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry on the State of Agriculture and Trade in the Colony of New South Wales. Reprinted 1966. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia.Google Scholar
Butlin, N. G. (1994). Forming a Colonial Economy, Australia 1810–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butlin, S. J. (1953). Foundations of the Australian Monetary System 1788–1851. Reprinted 1968. Sydney: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, R. (1893). History of Currency in the British Colonies. London: Printed for Her Majesty's Stationary Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode.Google Scholar
Cohen, E. E. (2008). The elasticity of the money-supply at Athens. In Harris, W. V. (ed.), The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Currey, C. H. (1968). The Brothers Bent. Sydney: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Decker, F. (2010). The Emergence of Money in Convict New South Wales. Marburg: Metropolis.Google Scholar
Fletcher, B. H. (1976). Landed Enterprise and Penal Society. Sydney: Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Grubb, F. (2006). The US Constitution and monetary powers: an analysis of the 1787 constitutional convention and the constitutional transformation of the US monetary system. Financial History Review, 13(1), pp. 43–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainsworth, D. R. (1968). Builders and Adventurers. North Melbourne: Cassell Australia.Google Scholar
Hainsworth, D. R. (1972). The Sydney Traders, Simeon Lord and his Contemporaries 1788–1821. North Melbourne: Cassell Australia.Google Scholar
Harris, W. V. (2008). The nature of Roman money. In Harris, W. V. (ed.), The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinsohn, G. and STEIGER, O. (2006). Interest and money: the property explanation. In Arestis, P. and Sawyer, M. (eds.), A Handbook of Alternative Monetary Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Holder, R. F. (1970). Bank of New South Wales: A History, vol. I: 1817–1893. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Ingham, G. (2004). The Nature of Money. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Innes, M. (1913). What is money?. The Banking Law Journal, May, pp. 377–408.Google Scholar
Kercher, B. (1996). Debt, Seduction & Other Disasters, The Birth of Civil Law in Convict New South Wales. Sydney: The Federation Press.Google Scholar
Kerridge, E. (1988). Trade and Banking in Early Modern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Kyd, S. (1800). A Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes. The second American from the third London Edition 1790. Albany: Loring Andrews.Google Scholar
Michener, R. and WRIGHT, R. E. (2006). Development of the US monetary union. Financial History Review, 13(1), pp. 19–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neufeld, E. P. (1964). Money and Banking in Canada, Historical Documents and Commentary. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, J. (1988). A Charge of Mutiny. Canberra: National Library of Australia.Google Scholar
Rousseau, P. (2006). A common currency: early US monetary policy and the transition to the dollar. Financial History Review, 13(1), pp. 97–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. (1776). The Wealth of Nations Books I-III. Reprinted with revisions 1999. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Stadermann, H. -J. (2002). Das Geld der Ökonomen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.Google Scholar
Steven, M. (1965). Merchant Campbell: A Study in Colonial Trade. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steven, M. (1992). Public credit and private confidence. In Broadbent, J. and Hughes, J. (eds.), The Age of Macquarie. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press in association with Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.Google Scholar
Wentworth, W. C. (1819). Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of The Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land. London: G. and W. B. Whittaker.Google Scholar
Wray, L. R. (1998). Understanding Modern Money. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar

SOURCES

Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament: Historical Records of Australia (Sydney, 1914–15)Google Scholar
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney: Macarthur Papers; Mitchell library manuscript collection A2909, microfilm CY2273Google Scholar
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney: Piper Papers; Mitchell library manuscript collection A254Google Scholar
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney: D'Arcy Wentworth papers, Treasury Orders 1812–1825, A763 / CY705Google Scholar
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney: Guide to paper currency and other negotiable instruments held in Dixson library, CY Reel 205Google Scholar
State Records Authority of New South Wales, Court of Civil Jurisdiction (agency number 1042), Minutes of Proceedings (Record series 2659), 1812–4 (5/1109–11)Google Scholar
State Records Authority of New South Wales, Governor's Court of New South Wales (agency number 1045), case papers where the amount claimed does not exceed £5, Record Series 4565; case papers 1819–1824 (4/7880) one box; judgment book (4/7883)Google Scholar
Superior Courts of New South Wales, Decisions of the Superior Courts of New South Wales, 1788–1899, Division of Law, Macquarie University, www.law.mq.edu.au/scnswGoogle Scholar
Sydney GazetteGoogle Scholar