structural:summarization
Central bank issuance of legal tender

Originally, the banknote was simply a promise to the bearer that they could redeem it for its value in specie, but in 1833, the second in a series of Bank Charter Acts established that banknotes would be considered as legal tender during peacetime.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, commercial banks were able to issue their own banknotes, and notes issued by provincial banking companies were the common form of currency throughout England, outside London. The Bank Charter Act of 1844, which established the modern central bank, restricted authorisation to issue new banknotes to the Bank of England, which would henceforth have sole control of the money supply in 1921. At the same time, the Bank of England was restricted to issue new banknotes only if they were 100% backed by gold or up to £14 million in government debt. The Act gave the Bank of England an effective monopoly over the note issue from 1928.