DECIMAL COINAGE. 239 



Brown, M.P., as representative of the Liverpool Chamber 1856. 

 of Commerce, had interviews with the Chancellor of the fHouse ee 

 Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade, to Commons - 

 suggest the appointment of a Committee of the House of 

 Commons to consider the whole subject of decimalising the 

 money, weights, and measures. Mr. Gladstone saw, with 

 the most practical of those who had dealt with the 

 question, that to include the subject of weights and 

 measures at that time would throw needless difficulty in 

 the way. Taking up one subject at a time, it would be 

 more easily understood ; and when the plan should be 

 adopted and its advantages felt, the difficulty of securing 

 a uniform system throughout would be removed. This 

 Committee was appointed, with Mr. William Brown for 

 Chairman. 



My husband's correspondence at this time shows how 

 large a share he had in the uphill work in which he was 

 at once expounder, adviser, and referee. He was applied 

 to for information on every part of the question on 

 weights and measures, on foreign money, on the history 

 of the change to a decimal coinage in other countries, 

 and on the changes that would be required to decimalise 

 our accounts and coinage in such a way as to cause least 

 difficulty in our money transactions both at home and 

 with our neighbours abroad ; for references to books of 

 authority ; in short, for every sort of information that 

 would enable the advocates of the reform to support their 

 cause. All this he gave freely and readily, more perhaps 

 in answer to private inquiries even than in print ; and the 

 amount of work done by him in this way all extraneous 

 to his lectures and other occupations can only be guessed 

 at by those who were with him at the time, or who have 

 seen his correspondence since. 



Here is an instance. Sir John Herschel asks 



What book, report, or resume contains what you would refer 

 any one to, who wanted to get a clear vie\v , in a short time, of 

 the history of the change to a decimal system of currency in 



