How much is £36,000

[chinakay]

...in today's money? A fortune when he died in 1888, I trow...his heirs were likely very happy about it

Cheers,
China

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi China,

lots of topics, external links and discussions on the meaning of "value" here under  Value of old money in the
RootsChat Reference => Lexicon ^{(click here)}
(Tip: click on a category - on the right - for related topics)

regards,
Bob

[Ruskie]

There are a few calculators out there. Here is one:
http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

I think the National Archives have one on their site somewhere too:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

[Berlin-Bob]

Another site here:
http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/reflib-useful-links.php?letter=V

[ShaunJ]

The price of beer in 1888 was 6d a quart or 3d a pint. There were 80 pints to the pound, so £36,000 would have bought 2,880,000 pints.  Today's price for a pint of beer is around £2.80, so - for a beer drinker - the purchasing power of £36,000 in 1888 is broadly equivalent to  £8 million pounds today.   

[clearly]

I like ShaunJ's idea of relating to everyday commodities but today's price of beer has been heavily influenced by government tax increases. Better price indicators may be butter, eggs, milk, bread, potatoes, etc.
Also be very wary of some of the comparison sites.  Some of them are so way-out in their calculations that it makes you wonder if they have done any research at all.  One site says to convert 1880 to present, multiply by 30. By that score a terraced house costing £500 in 1880 would now be worth £12,000 and a man earning a pound a week would now earn £30 a week. I think not.
Probably best to take an average of a few of them.

[chinakay]

Interesting! Had a look at them all, and this link in one of the threads kindly supplied by Berlin-Bob is particularly good:
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html

The NA converter is here:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/

So he was a very wealthy man indeed!

Many thanks for all the replies, gang

Cheers,
China

[clearly]

The link supplied by Berlin-Bob is much the best site I have come across. Many thanks Chinakay for pointing this out and Berlin-Bob for the original link.