Australia used pounds in 1956. The Australian dollar was 
not introduced until 10 years later and was worth half an 
Australian pound.

According to Global Financial Data
http://www.globalfindata.com/gxratead.txt
"1.25 Australian Pounds = 1 Pound Sterling in January 1932 
and was fixed at this rate in 1940, devaluing to 2.24 U.S. 
Dollars on September 18, 1949."  That is ambiguous but I 
think that what they mean is that one Australian pound (and 
not 1.25 Austalian pounds) was worth 2.24 US dollars in 
1949 because the same site says that when the Australian 
dollar was introduced in 1966 "its value was 1.12 U.S. 
Dollars", i.e. half what an Australian pound had been worth 
in 1949.

The reason for the Australian devaluation (not given by the 
Global Financial Data website) was that Britain devalued 
the pound by about 30% against the US dollar in 1949 and 
many other countries, particularly in the Commonwealth, 
followed the British example.

Under the Bretton Woods arrangement which lasted from 1944 
to 1971 exchange rates for the world's main currencies 
(barring the occasional devaluation) were fixed against the 
dollar, which in turn had its value fixed in terms of gold, 
so the Australian pound at the time of the Olympics in 1956 
would still have been worth 2.24 US dollars. 

At that time one pound sterling was worth 2.80 US dollars, 
i.e. 1.25 Australian pounds, or the same rate that had been 
fixed in 1949.  Therefore a million British pounds would 
have been worth 1,250,000 Australian ones in 1956.

If your enquirer wants to know how much that would be worth 
today then he might find it useful to consult some of the 
sources in my web page Current Value of Old Money.
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html

Roy Davies

History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day 
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/llyfr.html

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 17:18:00 GMT+1 Anna Martinez 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> This is the first time I write to the list and I do not know if this 
> enquire has anything to do with the topics in the list. 
> I'm writing from the library at the Universitat de Barcelona in order
> to ask for some information.
> 
> A student of our community is doing research on the 1956 Olympics in 
> Sydney. Therefore, he's trying to know how to convert one million British 
> Pounds onto Australian Dollars in 1956.
> 
> I have been searching all the material in historical currency 
> converters in the internet but I cannot get it so I wonder if you 
> know any historical currency converters, which do not need the UNIX 
> system to use them.
> 
> Please reply to my e-address.
> 
> Sincerely, 
> 
> Ana Martinez.
> Reference Librarian.
> Universitat de Barcelona.






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