Battle of Britain and "sponsors"

Many Spitfires used in the Battle of Britain were sponsored by private companies and individuals. Money raised in cities, towns and villages was used to buy a Spitfire at a cost of £5,000 each. They bore names such as Dogfighter bought by a well known Kennel Club, Dorothy was bought by women whose name was Dorothy, Gingerbread by red-haired men and women, Unshackled by donations from POWs and so on.

The largest donation received came from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands who donated £215,000 to purchase an entire squadron of 43 Spitfires.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/1941.html

 

I know the value of the pound was much more than it is today against the dollar in 1940. I could not find a program that would give the relative value of pounds from 1940 to today. I did find one that did dollars. $5,000 would be $63,000+ in 2003 dollars. That makes this quite a patriotic investment.

 

This practice was not limited to Spitfires only. Lady McRobert bought four Hurricanes and a Short Sterling in memory of her sons and husband. Husband died in 1922, one son died in an aircraft crash before the war and two more died in wartime operations.
The Sterling was N6086 and flew with 15 squadron. It's first combat mission was to Nuremberg Oct 12, 1941. This aircraft was lost in a collision with a Spitfire on the ground and the name was transfered to anouther Sterling which was lost on a mining mission in the Baltic.
I don't have the information in front of me but I think all the Hurricanes were lost also in accidents.