Bank nearly banned new £5 note with Churchill on it in case it upset the Germans...and officials worried about Jane Austen 'private life'

• Officials worried that Churchill's wartime record might make him controversial for visitors from Germany and Japan
• They also investigated Jane Austen's private life checking for 'issues'
  

By Chris Hastings

Published: 17:01 EDT, 12 October 2013 | Updated: 19:07 EDT, 12 October 2013

Bank of England bosses thought twice about putting Sir Winston Churchill on the new £5 note – because they didn’t want to upset the Germans.

Officials warned Sir Mervyn King, then Governor of the Bank of  England, that Churchill’s wartime record might make him highly controversial, documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday show.

The same officials also insisted on carrying out a background check on Jane Austen, the prim spinster author of Pride And Prejudice who will appear on the £10 note from 2017, to reassure themselves there were ‘no issues in her private life’.

Defiant: A Bank of England illustration of how the Churchill £5 note will look in 2016

Previously classified documents, obtained under freedom of information laws, shed light on the hitherto secret process of how the Bank of England decides which historic figures are honoured.

In a memo dated April 11, 2012, Sir Mervyn was advised Churchill will be a popular choice because of his ‘broad name recognition’ and the public’s ‘very affectionate view’ of him as a wartime leader. But officials also warned him that ‘the recentness of World War II is a living memory for many here and on the Continent’.

The rest of the comments, which relate to Britain’s relationship with its former wartime enemies, have been redacted from the files. A source at the Bank last night said: ‘Public bodies are obliged to redact any material which might impact on Britain’s international relations with another country, and this is what has happened here.’

Andrew Roberts, Churchill’s biographer, said: ‘The comments redacted would have been about irritating the Germans. I don’t think a German or Japanese tourist would be in the slightest bit put off by the fact there is Churchill on a £5 note and he is the man who flattened Dresden and Hiroshima.

‘They appreciate he’s the greatest Englishman who ever lived so you put him on the currency. It’s surprising this hasn’t happened earlier.’

No issues: Fortunately Austen's prim and proper lifestyle did not stand in the way of her portrait being approved for the £10 bank note

Officials also warned Sir Mervyn of Churchill’s ‘disastrous’ decision to return Britain to the gold standard in the 1920s. Churchill’s critics at the time claimed the move, with the backing of the Bank of England, produced the mass unemployment, deflation and industrial strife of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Bank staff who conducted ‘considerable research’ into Churchill’s role in the debacle noted: ‘If academics do pick up on the move to the gold standard it is likely they will refer to the role of the Bank and Churchill’s own criticism of the Bank.’

Austen was considered in 1984 but ruled out because there was ‘a lack of suitable art work’. The fact no new art work has come to light since will lead to concerns she was ruled out because she was a woman. Officials also said ‘name recognition’ for the novelist – whose works are often GCSE set texts – had increased significantly thanks to film and television adaptations.

The papers note the writer’s ‘high-brow, middle-brow and mass appeal’; and confirm ‘they have found no issues in her private life’.

The interest in Austen’s private life may strike some as odd given fellow writer Charles Dickens, who appeared on the £10 note from 1992 to 2003, had at least one mistress.

Maureen Stiller, of the Jane Austen Society, said: ‘I love the fact they went to the trouble of checking her private life. But there is absolutely no controversy there.’

Churchill will appear on the £5 note from 2016. A Bank spokesman said: ‘We have taken great care to ensure men and women chosen are admired by the British public.’