Banknote

This note comes from the first Equitable Labour Exchange, founded by Robert Owen the influential philanthropist, social reformer, and industrialist. The experiemental exchange opened just off Gray’s Inn Road on 17 September 1832, the date written on this note. The principle of the exchange was simple – that goods would be exchanged based on the number of labour hours that went into producing them, rather than an artificial standard of value. The exchange produced notes such as this one to help facilitate exchanges of products.
Owen believed that all value came from labour and that only by withdrawing from an unjust mainstream society and creating a new society of independent communities would workers enjoy the full fruits of his labour. Owen first referred to ‘labour-notes’ in Report to the County of Lanark (1820) as the means by which the problem of avoiding the use of conventional circulating currency would be addressed.
Significantly, as inscribed on the note, each labour hour was nominally valued at sixpence, a figure arrived at by taking the mean of the wages of the best and worst paid jobs and dividing this by the average man’s working day of ten hours.
The exchange was an initial success - on its first day, 18,000 hours’ worth of deposits was made, and goods to the value of 900 hours were exchanged. At its height weekly deposits of goods are claimed to have reached 400,000 hours’ worth of work. Branches followed in Blackfriars Road and Birmingham. However, the exchanges were shortlived, and all closed by mid-1834. Failure to exchange with food producers and a lowering quality of deposited goods led to support draining away. Owen paid off a £2,000 deficit run up by the London exchanges and its residual assets were auctioned off in 1836.
This is the first type of note from Owen’s exchanges. The elborate design with machine work and geometric lathe patterns features a beehive - signifing industry - and scales - representing integrity. The notes were engraved and printed in black by Viztelly, Branston & Co, Fleet Street, London.
These notes are very rare - only three others of this type from this branch are recorded and its issue number (95) is the lowest recorded. Labour notes were issued when goods were deposited but withdrawn and destroyed after they were handed back in exchange for goods.