Jersey Livre

Jersey kept accounts in French livres until 1834, which left it with a shilling of thirteen pence.

Until 1834 Jersey did not merely trade in French money, it counted in it. The currency was the livre of twenty sous, each of twelve deniers, and the coins in circulation were French — the liard, worth three deniers, being the commonest small change.

The odd shilling is what fell out of the conversion. The Code des Lois of 1771 fixed the rate at twenty-four livres to the pound, which made a two-sou piece the equivalent of an English penny. By the early nineteenth century the rate had slipped to twenty-six. When Jersey struck its own copper penny in 1840 it was made worth two sous, which is one thirteenth of a sterling shilling rather than one twelfth.

The States passed the law on 18 September 1834 and sterling became sole legal tender from 1 October, confirmed by Order in Council the following June. The coins took considerably longer to go than the law did: French money continued to circulate on the island and was not finally withdrawn until the 1920s.