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The history of currency in the British colony of [[Saint Lucia]] closely follows that of the British [[Eastern Caribbean]] territories in general. Even though Queen Anne's proclamation of 1704 brought the gold standard to the West Indies, silver [[pieces of eight]] ([[Spanish dollars]] and later [[Mexican dollar]]s) continued to form a major portion of the circulating currency right into the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Britain adopted the gold standard in 1821 and an imperial order-in-council of 1838 resulted in [[Saint Lucia]] formally adopting the British [[Pound sterling|sterling]] coinage in the year 1851. However, despite the circulation of British coins in St. Lucia, the silver [[pieces of eight]] continued to circulate alongside them and the private sector continued to use dollar accounts for reckoning. The international [[silver crisis of 1873]] signalled the end of the silver dollar era in the West Indies and silver dollars were demonetized in St. Lucia in 1882. This left a state of affairs, in which the British coinage circulated, being reckoned in dollar accounts at an automatic conversion rate of 1 dollar = 4 [[shilling]]s 2 pence.
From 1949, with the introduction of the [[British West Indies dollar]], the currency of St. Lucia became officially tied up with that of the British [[Eastern Caribbean]] territories in general. The British sterling coinage was eventually replaced by a new decimal coinage in 1955, with the new cent being equal to one half of the old penny.
==History==
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