Churchill Out, Puffins In: UK Banknotes to Feature Wildlife

 

The Bank of England's headquarters in the City of London, which announced the new banknote designs on October 8, 2026.

Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner and Alan Turing are on their way out of Britain's wallets. The Bank of England announced on Thursday, October 8, that its next generation of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes will feature four species of native British wildlife — the Atlantic puffin, the barn owl, the buff-tailed bumblebee and the European hedgehog — ending the current tradition of putting celebrated historical figures on the country's currency.

A barn owl in flight. The species was voted the public's top bird and will feature on one of the new banknotes.

An Atlantic puffin. It was chosen as the most po

What Happens Next

The rollout is set to start with the £5 note — the denomination that currently carries Churchill and was first issued in polymer in 2016 — followed over time by the £10, £20 and £50 notes, according to reports. The changeover will happen gradually over the coming years; existing notes will remain legal tender throughout, as with previous redesigns.

Design work, testing and production will now begin under Phillips, combining the announced animal imagery with new security features and materials science. The Bank has not yet published concept designs, so the public will have to wait to see how a barn owl, a bumblebee, a puffin and a hedgehog actually look on the nation's currency.

One thing is certain: the debate about whether Britain's heroes belong in wallets or its wildlife does is not going away.

pular marine species for the new series of notes.

The Four Animals Chosen

According to the Bank's announcement, the four species were selected through the largest public consultation on banknote imagery the institution has ever run. Members of the public were invited to pick their favourite creatures from a shortlist of 18 native species, drawn up by wildlife experts across three categories: mammals, birds, and amphibians, insects and fish.

The Bank received 478,531 responses. The barn owl emerged as the public's top bird with 270,596 votes, the buff-tailed bumblebee topped the combined amphibians, insects and fish group with 360,399 votes, and the European hedgehog was the top mammal with 259,665 votes. The Atlantic puffin, which polled 183,137 votes, was added as the most popular marine species so the final line-up would cover different environments around the UK.

Runners-up included the red fox (244,651 votes), the common kingfisher (211,277) and the emperor dragonfly (143,894), while the basking shark and the Atlantic salmon finished at the bottom of their group.

The reigning monarch, King Charles III, will continue to appear on the front of every note, as is the tradition with British currency.

How The Vote Was Run

The second-stage wildlife consultation ran between June 3 and July 3, 2026, and followed an earlier survey in which 60 percent of respondents picked "nature" as their preferred theme for the new notes, ahead of architecture and landmarks.

"I am delighted that nearly half a million people responded to our wildlife imagery consultation, showing that cash still matters," Victoria Cleland, the Bank of England's chief cashier, said in the announcement.

Rhys Phillips, the Bank's incoming chief cashier who will be responsible for delivering the new series, said: "It's fantastic to see how engaged the public have been in this choice. With these animals as the focus for the design, we can deliver a new series of banknotes that are secure and represent the UK at its best. We'll now work to design, test and produce the banknotes, combining the imagery we've announced today with cutting-edge security features and materials science."

Phillips was named to the post earlier this month and is scheduled to start on October 19.

The Backlash: 'Elitist and Divisive'

The move has provoked sharp criticism over the removal of historical figures, the influence of focus-group research, and whether the public consultation gave people a genuine opportunity to object to the change.

The controversy intensified after The Telegraph reported that research commissioned by the Bank of England had raised concerns about the suitability of historical figures for future banknotes. The reporting revealed that focus-group participants had described featuring notable Britons as potentially "elitist and divisive", and officials were told the portraits represented "a backward-looking vision of the UK that carries too great a risk of division and controversy."

Critics have seized on one feature of the process in particular: the consultation held this summer did not ask respondents whether they wanted to retain Churchill or the other historical figures. Instead, it only invited them to choose which animals should replace them — after the Bank had already selected nature as the theme for the new notes.

Media reports in September said the Bank had spent more than £85,000 on research connected to the redesign, including £49,000 paid to a polling firm to run focus groups and £22,500 on public consultations. Politicians and commentators have since called for the decision to be reconsidered, arguing that replacing the country's wartime prime minister with a hedgehog trivialises the nation's history.

The Bank has called the redesign a "positive evolution" of the banknote series, and says the new notes will be refreshed with cutting-edge security features.

What This Means

Beyond the culture-war noise, the decision says a lot about how Britain's central bank now thinks about cash itself. Fewer than 10 percent of UK payments were made in cash in 2024, and yet the response to the consultation — nearly half a million votes — suggests notes still carry real emotional and symbolic weight for the public.

The Bank's pitch is practical as much as aesthetic: fresh, distinctive artwork built around complex natural imagery can make counterfeit notes easier to spot, and modern production techniques can add harder-to-copy security features. For the minority of Britons who still rely on cash day-to-day — and for everyone else when digital payments fail — a secure, trusted note matters more than who is printed on it.

But the episode also exposes the limits of public consultation as political cover. Asking people which animal should go on a note is not the same as asking whether historical figures should come off it — and the Bank is learning that the distinction matters to many of its respondents.

The decision, which brings an end to decades of human portraits on standard Bank of England notes, has already sparked a fierce political backlash, with critics accusing the central bank of rigging the process and demanding the move be reconsidered.