Sir Winston Churchill will feature on the new design of a banknote which will enter circulation in 2016, the Bank of England has announced, BBC reports.
The wartime leader’s image is planned to feature on the reverse of the new £5 note, together with one of his most celebrated quotations.
Churchill was chosen owing to his place as “a hero of the entire free world”, said Bank governor Sir Mervyn King.
The current face of the £5 note is social reformer Elizabeth Fry.
The design includes a portrait of the former prime minister, adapted from a photograph taken by Yousuf Karsh on 30 December 1941. He is the only politician from the modern era to feature on a banknote.
The artwork will also include:
- Churchill’s declaration “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” which came in a speech in the Commons on 13 May 1940
- A view of Westminster and the Elizabeth Tower from the South Bank
- The Great Clock showing three o’clock – the approximate time of the Commons speech
- A background image of the Nobel Prize for literature, which he was awarded in 1953
