In the blackletter type used until the seventeenth century, the letter L is rendered as L ), standing for Lindström (the firm's founder Carl Lindström). However, the simple letter L, in lower- or uppercase, was used to represent the pound in printed books and newspapers until well into the 19th century. By the time the Bank was founded in 1694 the £ sign was in common use. However, there is in the Bank of England Museum a cheque dated 7 January 1661 with a clearly discernible £ sign. It is not known for certain when the horizontal line or lines, which indicate an abbreviation, first came to be drawn through the L.
The pound became an English unit of weight and in England became defined as the tower pound (equivalent to 350 grams) of sterling silver.
The symbol derives from the upper case Latin letter L, representing libra pondo, the basic unit of weight in the Roman Empire, which in turn is derived from the Latin word, libra, meaning scales or a balance. In Canada and the United States, "pound sign" refers to the symbol # ( number sign). The sign may be drawn with one or two bars depending on personal preference, but the Bank of England has used the one-bar style exclusively on banknotes since 1975. The same symbol is used for other currencies called pound, such as the Gibraltar, Egyptian, Manx and Syrian pounds. The pound sign £ is the symbol for the pound unit of sterling – the currency of the United Kingdom and previously of Great Britain and of the Kingdom of England.
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