Taking into account the Archer-Shee case on which the film is based occurred shortly before The Great War I would be interested to know how much five shillings would be worth today. To a lad of schoolboy age I would think a fair amount of money. Any ideas?
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Actually, five shillings would be considered a rather paltry sum. Don't forget that when the man who I assume is the head of the Naval college young Ronnie has been expelled from is speaking to Mr. Winslow, he implies that perhaps he doesn't what his son did was so terrible because it wasn't a large sum of money.
shareIt is difficult to make a simple conversion of currency circa 1910 to today. But as a very rough guide, I note that it was 20 years after London dockside workers went on strike for 6 pence an hour (or 4 shillings for a 40 hour week). The period from 1889 to 1910 was I think one of relatively low inflation, so I suggest 5 shillings in 1910 would have been about what a docker earned in a day.
I am no expert on current London dockers wages, and in any event the job is completely different as a result of mechanization (and in particular containerization) but I would have thought the modern equivalent would be of the order of 80 - 100 pounds.
Per the site below, five shillings would be worth about 14.27 pounds.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/results.asp#mid
It cost 200 pounds a year to send his brother to Oxford.
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