Currency lads and lasses

[2] In the early years of the Colony of New South Wales, the term "currency" was used to refer to any money other than pound sterling, which was the only legal tender.

Owing to a shortage of sterling, "currency" circulated freely, but was not always accepted – the term carried implications of illegality, inferior quality, and subordination.

[4] As applied to people rather than money, the term originally had derogatory connotations – by the early 1820s, "currency had stuck for male and female native-born and everyone knew what it implied".

[4] In Two Years in New South Wales, published in 1827, Peter Miller Cunningham wrote: "Our colonial-born brethren are best known here by the name of Currency, in contradistinction to Sterling, or those born in the mother-country.

[2] In 1852, the term was still being used: "A singular disinclination to finish any work completely, is a striking characteristic of colonial craftsmen, at least of the 'currency' or native-born portion.