End of the Darwin tenner

Pretty much as predicted, yesterday, the Bank of England announced that Jane Austen will replace Charles Darwin on the £10 note (most likely, some time in 2017).

With its announcement, the Bank of England has cleverly appeased campaigners who insisted that there must be at least one woman (in addition to the queen) on its bank notes by saying that it's going to do exactly what it was planning to do all along—a wonderful example of diplomacy in action.

Jane Austen wouldn't have been my first choice—or even my twentieth—but neither would Adam Smith, whose irritatingly smug profile currently disgraces the £20 note. As I said previously, personally, I'd have preferred the Brontë sisters over Austen, to bring some much-needed northernness to our bank notes, but regional inequality is still not seen as a pressing issue, it would seem.

Richard Carter, FCD

Writer and photographer Richard Carter, FCD is the founder of the Friends of Charles Darwin. He lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.WebsiteNewsletterMastodonetc…

One comment

  1. It's a shame Rosalind Franklyn, the first to offer sound evidence that DNA is a duouble helix, leading to the success of Watson and Crick, was not honoured as the obvious successor to Darwin on the tenner.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *