Farthing (¼d)
Modern equivalent
0.25 old pence ≈ £0.001 (modern)
A historic coin worth one-quarter of an old penny, withdrawn from circulation in 1960.
A quarter of a penny, and the smallest coin Britain ever struck. The name is simply a fourthing, an Old English quarter, and in ledgers and on price tickets it was written ¼d — the fraction and the Roman d together, which is about as compressed as English money ever got. Prices ending in a farthing were a shopkeeper’s trick long before 99p: three farthings below a round figure made eleven pence three farthing look meaningfully cheaper than a shilling. Post-war inflation finished it. By 1960 the farthing bought nothing at all, and its demonetisation ended sub-penny coinage in Britain after seven centuries.