Find the answers to the following questions in the text

1.What is the official currency of the UK?

2.What is the smallest money unit in the UK?

3.How many pence are there in one pound?

4.What banknotes and coins are in circulation in the UK now?

5.Who issues banknotes and mints coins in the UK?

6.What famous people are featured on the back of various English banknotes?

The official currency of the UK is the pound sterling which is equal to one hundred pence. English banknotes are issued by the Bank of England. As to coins they are minted also by this state bank.

There are banknotes of the following denominations: £1, £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100. The following coins are in circulation: halfpenny, one penny, two pence, five pence, ten pence, fifty pence.

On the face of English banknotes one can read the denomination given both in figures and in words.

Then the inscription on the face of the banknotes reads: I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of … And then there are two signatures. The first signature is that of the person authorized by he Government and the Bank of England. The second signature is that of the Chief Cashier.

The back of English banknotes, like many other banknotes, feature portraits of different famous people.

The one pound banknote, for example, features Isaac Newton (1642-1727) a well-known English scientist who made a few very important discoveries including gravitation law.

The back of the five pound note portrays the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), a famous Irish general who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, Belgium in 1815.

On the back of the ten pound note one can see Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), founder of the nursing profession. She volunteered as a nurse to Turkey to take care of the wounded soldiers from the Crimean War, war of England and France versus Russia.

And the back of the twenty pound banknote features William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest playwright of all time.