The livre was currency of Jersey

Jersey

Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...

 until 1834. It consisted entirely of French coins.

Until the 1720s, the currency used was the French livre

French livre

The livre was the currency of France until 1795. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre was the name of both units of account and coins.-Etymology:...

, subdivided into 20 sou

Solidus (coin)

The solidus was originally a gold coin issued by the Romans, and a weight measure for gold more generally, corresponding to 4.5 grams.-Roman and Byzantine coinage:...

s, each of 12 denier

French denier

The denier was a Frankish coin created by Charlemagne in the Early Middle Ages. It was introduced together with an accounting system in which twelve deniers equaled one sou and twenty sous equalled one livre...

s. The commonest coin in circulation was the liard

Liard (coin)

The liard was a subdivision of the kronenthaler, the currency of the Austrian Netherlands . There were 216 liards to a kronenthaler. Following the French occupation of the Austrian Netherlands in 1794, the kronenthaler was replaced by the French franc.The liard was also a French coin, worth 3...

(3 deniers or ¼ of a sou). However, the copper coinage had devalued against silver and by the 1720s liards were being exchanged in St Malo at a rate of 6 to the sou. The consequent cross-border financial speculation caused by the discrepancy in coinage values was threatening economic stability. The States of Jersey

States of Jersey

The States of Jersey is the parliament and government of Jersey.The Assembly of the States of Jersey has exercised legislative powers since 1771, when law-making power was transferred from the Royal Court of Jersey....

 therefore resolved to devalue

Devaluation

Devaluation is a reduction in the value of a currency with respect to those goods, services or other monetary units with which that currency can be exchanged....

 the liard to 6 to the sou. The legislation to that effect implemented in 1729 caused popular riots that shook the establishment. The devaluation was therefore cancelled and the liard remained officially at 4 to the sou until 1834 (and liard remains the Jèrriais

Jèrriais

Jèrriais is the form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, off the coast of France. It has been in decline over the past century as English has increasingly become the language of education, commerce and administration...

 word for a farthing).

The Code des Lois of 1771 codified the value of the livre against sterling in order to regulate the exchange of sterling

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

 paid to the British garrison and the currency used by the population. The exchange rate was set at 24 livres = 1 pound, making the 2 sous coin equal to a British penny. However, in the early 19th century, an exchange rate of 26 livres = 1 pound was established.

In the French Revolutionary period, the livre was replaced by the franc

French franc

The franc was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra . Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money...

. The last coins and notes of the livre currency system were issued in France in the Year II of the Republic (1794).
By the 1830s, the surviving livre coinage was in very short supply in Jersey and so worn as to be unusable. The States passed a law on September 18, 1834 that sterling would be sole legal tender

Legal tender

Legal tender is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Paper currency is a common form of legal tender in many countries....

 as from October 1, 1834 (this law was confirmed by Order in Council, June 24, 1835). However, although sterling was henceforth the sole legal tender, French coinage continued to circulate in Jersey. In 1840, a new copper coinage was introduced for Jersey, based on a penny

Penny

A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...

 worth of a shilling

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

, the equivalent of 2 sous.

Nonetheless, some French coins continued to circulate (increasingly French francs). On February 7, 1923 the States passed a law to ban the import of foreign copper coinage in sums exceeding 20 sous. This law was confirmed by Order in Council March 12, 1923 and registered in the Royal Court April 7, 1923. The States then proceeded to take steps to remove French copper coinage from circulation. On August 2, 1923, the States authorised the Finance Committee to exchange French copper coins for Jersey copper coins. Between August 27 and September 8, the Treasury carried out at their office the exchange of 1 and 2 sous French coins for Jersey coins and placed advertisements in the press to that effect with an additional reminder that French coinage remained not legal tender.