History
In the 19th century, the pound sterling became the currency of the British West African territories and standard issue United Kingdom coinage circulated. The West African territories in question are Nigeria, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Sierra Leone and the Gambia.
In 1912, the special circumstances of British West Africa resulted in the authorities in London setting up the West African Currency Board and issuing a distinctive set of sterling coinage for local use. In 1910, Australia had already commenced issuing its own distinctive varieties of the sterling coinage, but the reasons for doing so were quite different from those relating to British West Africa. In the case of Australia, the local sterling coinage was issued by the authorities in Australia as a step in its advance towards full nationhood. In the case of British West Africa, it was the authorities in London who made the decision to issue a special coinage for the West African territories. The authorities in London did not do this for any other British colony that used the sterling coinage, with the exception of Jamaica where special low denomination coins were issued in place of the United Kingdom copper coins, due to local superstitions surrounding the use of copper coinage for church collections.
The special circumstances in British West Africa that prompted the move towards a special issue of sterling coinage were that there was a tendency for the existing United Kingdom sterling coinage in the West African territories to leave the region and return to the United Kingdom, hence causing a local dearth of coinage. A unique British West African variety of the sterling coinage that would not be accepted in the shops of England, would therefore remain in circulation locally. Liberia also adopted the currency in 1907, replacing the Liberian dollar, despite the fact it was not served by the West African Currency Board. Liberia changed to the U.S. dollar in 1943. The British sections of Togo and Cameroon adopted the West African currency in 1914 and 1916 respectively after being taken from Germany. Beginning in 1958, the West African pound was replaced by local currencies in the individual territories. The replacements were:
| Country | Date | New Currency |
Conversion Rate From BWA pound |
| Ghana | 1958 | Ghanaian pound | 1 |
| Nigeria | 1958 | Nigerian pound | 1 |
| British Cameroon | 1961 | CFA franc | 700 |
| Sierra Leone | 1964 | Leone | 2 |
| Gambia | 1968 | Gambian pound | 1 |
Read more about this topic: British West African Pound
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