Mark Carney: £50 note character selection announcement

Speech by Mr Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, 15 July 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

It's a pleasure to be at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. These galleries testify to the UK's rich history of discovery in science, technology and industry.

A little more than eight months ago, the Bank sought to recognise the UK's extraordinary scientific heritage by asking people across the country to "Think Science" in order to help us choose the character to feature on the new £50 note.

We were overwhelmed by the response. In six weeks, almost a quarter of a million nominations were submitted, from which we distilled a very long list of nearly 1,000 unique characters.

The hard work of narrowing down these names to a shortlist of twelve options required the incomparable knowledge and tireless work of the Banknote Character Advisory Committee.