Question from a Follower: How would a widowed duchess go about paying her bills?

Most of the rich kept a good supply of cash on hand in a safe. They paid the servants and others in cash on a regular basis.

If there was a bailiff or estate steward who collected the rent and paid the bills for repairs and such, he would also put some in the bank and hand some over to the owner.

However, very few widowed duchesses would be handling their own expenses. Usually her son would do so. If she did not have a son, the husband usually provided a trustee. She could have her own man of affairs.

What was not paid in cash could be paid by the equivalent of a check.

They did have checks, but those were awkward for most people to use and most shopkeepers of the day preferred cash. Most preferred hard coin and not paper money as well.

So if you want the duchess paying her own bills, she would have the cash in a safe, and send a trusted  servant (or two) or the man of affairs to the shop with the money.

Follow-up Question: Just a final question. To get the cash from the bank to her safe, how would that be done? If she was living independently without a male relative, would she have gone to the bank herself or is there someone in her employ that would handle that for her?

As mentioned above, she could have a man of affairs, a solicitor, her son, or a trusted servant take care of the payments. She could send the person to the bank with the equivalent of a check. 

Though many businesses were run without an actual handling of money, most people had cash.

She would receive her  jointure or other  payments periodically–quite often on quarter days, and they would probably be in cash. Even if much of the payment was deposited in a personal account at the bank, the rest would be in cash. Her budget would tell her how much to have in cash and it would be some unexpected item that might require a withdrawal.

It was a cash society for most people. The shoemaker or the butcher was leery enough of paper money and cheques were something most of them distrusted. They wanted coin they could bite and test for authenticity.

The bank was not yet set up for many personal checking accounts. Banks were mainly commercial, savings or clearing banks and not ones where individuals had checking accounts.

Men might use checks or bank drafts for horses and carriages or for some tailor or coal bills, but servants, milliners, and ordinary shopkeepers were paid in cash.

Some even had the shopkeepers come to their house to be paid. A Duchess wasn’t going to walk around paying bills and wouldn’t send out a servant with a great deal of money on his person.

The money was more often in the safe than in the bank.

You must also remember something of the Bank Restriction Act of 1797. [This act and its follow up renewals plays out in book two of the new series I am writing for Dragonblade Publishers. The book will be out on September 17, 2025 and will be entitled Lyon’s Obsession. Book 1, Lyon in the Way releases June 18, 2025.]

Investopedia tells us: “In 1694, the Bank of England, a private corporation, was created out of the British government’s need for cheap loans to finance its expenses. [Bank of England. “Our History,” https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/histor.”%5D Three years later, the Bank was given monopoly rights that covered banking and note-issuing activities. However, once the war with France began in the 1790s, the British government’s military expenses rose very quickly. Thus, the government issued paper notes that the Bank of England was expected to convert into gold on demand. [Bank of England. “Bank of England. “Bank of England – 1734-1984. https://www.bankofengland.com.uk/-/media/boe/files/archive/publications/the-bank-1734-1894.pdf, pages 3-4.]

“However, by 1797, the Bank’s gold reserves had been reduced to dangerously low levels as a result of heavy demands for gold redemptions from both domestic and foreign note holders. To save the Bank from bankruptcy, the British government passed the Bank Restriction Act of 1797. [The New York Times. “War Finance in England: The Bank Restriction Act of 1797—Suspension of Specie Payments for Twenty-four Years—How to Prevent Depreciation of the Currency, https://www.nytimes.com/1862/01/27/archives/war-finance-in-england-the bank-restriction-act-of-1797suspension.html.”]

“By the end of the war in 1814, the amount of currency in circulation was far larger than the amount of gold backing it, leading to a sharp depreciation in the value of British currency, the pound sterling. [Federal Reserve Bank St. Louis. “British Financial Experience, 1790-1830, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/meltzer/silbri19.pdf,” Page 5] Convertibility to gold was restored in 1821 to stabilize the currency. By then, the amount of gold backing the currency had grown substantially and amounted to much more than the value of the pounds in circulation.”

If you choose to keep the character as handling her own bills and expenses, I would say, if she wants to be independent, then she is going to have to decide how she will attend to things.  And that will be character revealing. Maybe she asks her solicitor or her brother, what the procedure will be. They might even argue with her.

Another Follow-Up Question: Would it be normal to ask for a receipt?  Our checks are our receipts.  But what did they do?  What if someone says they were not paid?

They did give receipts for payments.

History of banking will help you out. Cheques (or bank drafts) existed:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/online_research_catalogues/paper_money/paper_money_of_england__wales/english_banking_history.aspx

There were printed cheques from the 1720’s on. So she could write a cheque, or a bank draft, or she could visit the merchant with banknotes in hand (from the bank), or she could have her man of business settle accounts, or she could send servants out with these drafts or cheques upon her account.

Part of it depends on how the estate was left (Did her husband leave everything in the hands of trustees or in her hands?).

Depending on her status, too, she might have the merchants visit her.