JANE AUSTEN NOTE ADVOCATE CAROLINE CRIADO-PEREZ

The room, dominated by an enormous bed with a mattress at waist height to allow for storage underneath, has the feel of a cosy library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a half-moon desk at the window. The literary ambience is apt given Criado-Perez is best known for her involvement with the Jane Austen campaign. But her achievement was never a crusade about the English novelist per se. “It became reported as a campaign on Jane Austen,” she says. “It wasn’t.”

Her involvement began when the Bank of England announced four years ago that Winston Churchill would replace Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note from 2016. That would mean there would be no women (apart from the queen) on notes issued by one of the world’s most influential central banks. “I didn’t care who the woman was. It was a matter of principle,” Criado-Perez says, explaining that she regarded the move as being a damaging example of women becoming less visible in society.

Having set up an online petition she worked with a solicitor to write to the Bank, calling it out for falling short of a duty as a public body to ensure equality. Meetings with Victoria Cleland, then director of notes, and Chris Salmon, then chief cashier, followed and in the end it was the Bank that suggested Jane Austen as a suitable candidate.

Born in Brazil to an Argentine father and British mother, she is bilingual in Spanish and English, and spent her childhood in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Taiwan before moving to the UK as a teenager to attend boarding school. “It was a huge culture shock,” she says, recalling teenage concerns about fitting in. “The boy bands I knew were Taiwanese!”

The banknote campaign was a major victory, winning Criado-Perez plaudits, including an OBE for services to equality and diversity. But it carried a personal cost: she was subject to horrendous online abuse and two people were later jailed for making lurid threats against her.

To read the complete article, see:
‘Who expects death threats for asking for a woman on a banknote?’ (https://www.ft.com/content/1d250ebe-bf1b-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web