The image of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (b. 1926) is on at least 33 different currencies used in over 50 national economies & tax jurisdictions world over. She funnily enough, is the Guiness World Record holder of exactly that fact. The majority of the UK economy's wealth today was built during the colonial era, where clever British Imperialism and racist economics were the main order of business. The Brits were the first economic region to industrialize, which was where their imperialist endeavors sprung forth to take form, evil form.
“Current banknotes featuring the image of Her Majesty the Queen will continue to be legal tender,” - Bank of England, Sept 10, 2022.
It all started once upon a time in the late 1600s, when Great Britian (modern day UK) took up Christianity seriously, then some 200 years later became the first political region (i.e., country) in the world to go through an Industrial Revolution. Such industrialization brought Great Britian critical economic acclaim, even greater than that of Egypt, who were the world's most advanced society in education at that time.
As the first to the revolutionize, Britian's industrialists revolutionized foundational primary sector fields of the GB economy such as communication, manufacturing and transportation, which in turn caused a desirable ripple effect in job creation within the services sector, in fields such as accounting, sales, tourism and law. Great Britian had fast become known as the "workshop" of the world, and consequentially obtained immense wealth, and thus, British imperialism was born.
As Uncle Ben from Spider-Man once popularly said, "with great power, comes great responsibility", and with great wealth that Great Britian had begun to amass from the early 1800s right up to the mid 1900s, where they peaked in both sovereignty (owning much of the known world), and in wealth, but gave in to the temptation of abusing such power.
In particular after the year 1840, where the economic policy of mercantilism was discarded for the more business attractive and transactionally liberal policies of free trade, i.e., fewer tariffs, quotas or restrictions. Free trade policies were first hypothesized by British economist Adam Smith in his seminal scholarly work, most notably his book titled 'Wealth of Nations'.
Between the decades of 1870 and 1900, economic output per head of the United Kingdom grew by 50 percent (approx. £28 per capita in 1870 to £41 in 1900), which symbolized the peak of said Industrialization, as it was no longer just manufacturing, accounting and legal services that were being provided, but entertainment services too in the form of musicians, film actors/actresses, and the like. In 1870, Britian's output per head was the second highest in the world, overtook only by Australia.
The modern UK economy has since weakened, and perhaps without the dominate and conquer mindset of old, the sharp-wittedness of policy makers and key decision makers such as the Prime Ministers of the last 5 decades, has also declined.
The new United Kingdom seeks economic growth without taking advantage of other nations and their peoples, a mindset radically different from divide-and-conquer. British Business, the heartbeat of both the old British Empire and new Commonwealth Crown, will be of momentous concern for the newly appointed Head of State, His Royal Highness, King Charles III.
God save the King.
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