What an interesting question was posed about the value in today’s money of a pension worth £109 7s 6d in 1916! I’m afraid I can’t answer the question, but I can say that when I was a university student in London in 1960, I was offered a job at EMI, in their Oxford Street record store, for FIVE POUNDS A WEEK! I didn’t take the job, and the offered wages were ridiculously low even for the time and place and the fact that I was female. But that offer of £20 a month in 1960 shows that £109 7s 6d a month in 1916 must have been a fabulous pension, possibly the equivalent of £10,000 a month today. I hope he enjoyed it! I find this list really, really interesting, and I am very glad I joined it. Anthea Tillyer On Jun 14, 2015, at 12:43, Ian Poyntz via <india@rootsweb.com> wrote: Stewart Green, stewartgreen372@gmail.com, has asked me to post the following message for him. He has been unable to send it himself. Please send replies to the list, (recommended), or directly to Stewart, NOT to me. Ian, List Admin >> Topic: Indian Police Pension value in today's terms My great-grandfather served with the Indian Police between the years 1885 and 1916. He retired in 1916 as a District Superintendent of Police. His monthly pension on retirement was £109 7s 6d. I was interested to find out how much this equates to in today’s money so I entered the figures into an inflation calculator on the internet and it returned a whopping £10 045.63 per month. Could this be correct? In my own currency this equates to ZAR200 000 a month. It seems an awful lot of money. On another note, can anyone tell me how senior the rank of District Superintendent of Police was in the hierarchy. Would there still have been ranks above him? Stewart Green, stewartgreen372@gmail.com << ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to INDIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
£109 per month is high but not necessarily that high. Current value would depend what type of conversion rate is used and the comparison of District Police Superintendent pay rates in India with average UK pay rates in 1916 and in 2015. It also needs to be determined what the equivalent rank of a District Superintendent in India in 1916 would be in UK in 2015. The exchange rate between the rupee and pound sterling in1916 may also be significant. The comparison tables I use are based on RPI and show that £109 per month or £1300 per year in 1916 would be worth £79k per year in 2015. He possibly may have been the the equivalent of a present day Chief Superintendent whose top rate of pay would be £83k. I dont know what current police pension rates are but I would guess that an annual salary of £83k would result in an annual pension of about £55k. He could, however, have been the equivalent of an Assistant Chief Constable who could possibly be receiving a pension of about £70k in 2015. Anthea said that £5 a week in 1960 was ridiculously low. I started work in 1960 on £6 per week doing a clerical job. It was about the going rate then for a seventeen year old doing that sort of work. Some who left school at the same time as me and did the same sort of work were paid a little more but many less. That would have been higher than the starting wage of a shop assistant although the potential for higher wages for clerical work would have been greater. As a matter of interest the maximum weekly rate of pay of a professional footballer in 1960 was £20 per week in the playing season and less in the summer. David R -------------------------------------------- On Sun, 14/6/15, Anthea Tillyer via <india@rootsweb.com> wrote: Subject: Re: [INDIA] Indian Police Pension value in today's terms To: "Ian Poyntz" <ian.poyntz@gmail.com>, india@rootsweb.com Date: Sunday, 14 June, 2015, 19:06 What an interesting question was posed about the value in today’s money of a pension worth £109 7s 6d in 1916! I’m afraid I can’t answer the question, but I can say that when I was a university student in London in 1960, I was offered a job at EMI, in their Oxford Street record store, for FIVE POUNDS A WEEK! I didn’t take the job, and the offered wages were ridiculously low even for the time and place and the fact that I was female. But that offer of £20 a month in 1960 shows that £109 7s 6d a month in 1916 must have been a fabulous pension, possibly the equivalent of £10,000 a month today. I hope he enjoyed it! I find this list really, really interesting, and I am very glad I joined it. Anthea Tillyer On Jun 14, 2015, at 12:43, Ian Poyntz via <india@rootsweb.com> wrote: Stewart Green, stewartgreen372@gmail.com, has asked me to post the following message for him. He has been unable to send it himself. Please send replies to the list, (recommended), or directly to Stewart, NOT to me. Ian, List Admin >> Topic: Indian Police Pension value in today's terms My great-grandfather served with the Indian Police between the years 1885 and 1916. He retired in 1916 as a District Superintendent of Police. His monthly pension on retirement was £109 7s 6d. I was interested to find out how much this equates to in today’s money so I entered the figures into an inflation calculator on the internet and it returned a whopping £10 045.63 per month. Could this be correct? In my own currency this equates to ZAR200 000 a month. It seems an awful lot of money. On another note, can anyone tell me how senior the rank of District Superintendent of Police was in the hierarchy. Would there still have been ranks above him? Stewart Green, stewartgreen372@gmail.com << ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to INDIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to INDIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message