September 19, 1931

Gold Standard (Amendment) Act 1931

Parliament legally suspends Britain’s gold standard

The Bank of England's governor was in mid-Atlantic when his deputy radioed him: "Sorry we have to go off tomorrow."

Three dates, and the listing picks the wrong one

The listing dates Britain's abandonment of the gold standard to 19 September 1931. That was the day the Bank of England sent its warning letter; the Cabinet decided and the Treasury announced suspension on Sunday 20 September, and Parliament enacted the legal suspension on Monday the 21st.

The Gold Standard (Amendment) Act received enactment on 21 September, suspending the 1925 provision that required the Bank of England to sell gold bullion at the statutory fixed price and so severing sterling's legal gold link.

The act also authorised the Treasury for six months to take exchange-related measures it considered necessary, and indemnified the Bank for contrary actions taken after 18 September — a retroactive provision, not evidence that Britain left gold on the 19th.

Why the Bank gave up

More than £200 million had been withdrawn from London since mid-July, against a Bank of England gold holding the Treasury put at about £130 million and emergency credits of £50 million from the Bank plus £50 million in government credits.

The Bank warned the government on 19 September that it could no longer safely meet the statutory obligation. Governor Montagu Norman was aboard a ship in the Atlantic; deputy governor Ernest Harvey sent him the telegram saying Britain would go off gold the next day.

The London Stock Exchange closed pending parliamentary approval, while banks remained open and ordinary sterling business continued.

What leaving gold did and did not mean

The 1931 bullion standard had never promised ordinary noteholders gold coins on demand; the suspended provision required the Bank to sell large gold bars at a fixed statutory price. Leaving it did not prohibit owning or trading gold, and the government emphasised that private disposal of gold held in or sent to Britain for foreign account remained permitted.

Sterling was not given a new fixed parity. It floated: when fixing resumed on 23 September the sterling gold price was £5 per fine troy ounce, and it had risen more than 27 percent by the end of that week.

Bretton Woods was a later and different arrangement — a gold-dollar regime in which foreign monetary authorities could convert U.S. dollars into gold — and the United States' 1971 termination of that convertibility is forty years removed from Britain's 1931 departure.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 8 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at 1931-09-21.

What the sources leave uncertain

The listed date, 19 September, is not supported as the completed abandonment. The Bank sent its warning letter on 19 September; the Cabinet decided and the Treasury announced suspension on Sunday, 20 September; Parliament enacted the legal suspension on Monday, 21 September.
Because historians sometimes date the event by the government’s 20 September announcement and sometimes by the 21 September act, the event is best treated as a two-day decision-and-enactment sequence. For an event phrased as the United Kingdom legally abandoning the standard, 21 September is the strongest date.
The act’s indemnity covered Bank actions after 18 September, but that retroactive provision does not mean Britain abandoned gold on 19 September.