Metrication in the United Kingdom that reported in 1818, and again in Parliament by Sir John Wrottesley in 1824. Another Royal Commission was set up 1838 by Chancellor of the Exchequer Thomas Spring Rice and it reported in 1841 that decimal coinage was required first. A third commission in 1853 advocated decimal coinage in the form £1 : 10 florins : 100 cents: 1000 mils. The first florins (one tenth of a pound sterling) were struck in 1849 as silver coins weighing and having a diameter of . An early supporter of the "Decimal Association" was the mathematician Augustus de Morgan whose articles supporting the
Currency Act 1982 Currency Act 1982 The Currency Act 1982 (c 3) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Following Decimal Day in 1971, when the British monetary system changed from pound/shilling/penny to the metric £1 = 100p system, the new currency was known as the "new pound" and therefore the "new pence". By 1982, the use of "new pence" was out of use, and replaced with "penny". The Act sanctions the use of "penny" rather than "new penny" in common usage, such as on coins produced by the Royal Mint. The Act covers England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.