Posted by John Birch on July 10, 2000 at 11:45:39 from gateway1.gsi.gov.uk:
In Reply to: Re: Victorian Farthing not Penny posted by Dave W on July 09, 2000 at 08:15:40:
Unfortunately there was no official Retail Price Index in Britain prior to 1914 (and even the ones before 1946 are looked down upon by the purer government statistician) so there is no "official" answer to what an Victorian farthing equals (one might also add that, as the dear lady was on the throne for the better part of 63 years the relative values of different Victorian farthings might vary a bit). However, it is not unreasonable to suppose that inflation prior to the First World War was not particularly great (things only really start going mad in the 1970s) and so 1914 prices will be a very good guide to farthing values, especially values from near the end of her reign. Anyway, the purchasing power of 1914 farthing (0.1p) was equivilent to just under a ha'penny (0.4d or 0.2p) by the 1930s (you multiply all the numbers in my ready-reckoner [message 5219 or see Dick's Pocket Book] by 1.6), or to what would have been 9d or just over 4p today. So that shiny 5p piece in your pocket has only slightly more value than a Victorian farthing! For US readers a Victorian farthing equated to "Victorian" US one cent. By 1930 that had the same purchasing power as c1.6 cents which in turn equates to nearly 15 US cents today. And for Australian readers thats nearly 25 cents. For anyone else... work it out yourself! John Birch (PS - the dispute about 1914-1946 indexes is an interesting social piece. The 1914-45 index was based on the supposed outgoings of a "working class man", but be has to be said also a working class man who neither smoked nor drank so a very unusual working-class man. Moreover throughout this period the goods in the "shopping basket" didn't change at all. So in 1945 this pledge-taking working class man was still living in a house lit by candles, wearing clothing 30 years out of fashion, while waking to work... and so on. In short - despite the fact that he would have stood out in a crowd - he was still getting a bit difficult to find. So the new RPI was introduced with its ever-changing basket, aimed at spending across all social groups. As a result comparing any purchasing values from post 1946 to anything pre 1946 is likely to get you lynched by a mob of annoyed statisticians because the two indexes had different bases. But to hell with them, it is makes any difference at all it will only be an odd decimal point here and there!
(allegedly Chief Librarian at the Office for National Statistics)