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1 000 000 Pounds - Treasury Note
| Issuer | HM Treasury |
|---|---|
| Year | 1948 |
| Type | Non-circulating banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in green on white paper, with elaborate guilloche vignettes flanking both left and right margins. The crowned royal arms are centred at the top, supported by a lion and unicorn, with the motto ribbons of the Order of the Garter and sovereign's personal motto below. The denomination £1,000,000 appears in the upper left, with the place and date of issue, the full text of entitlement to payment from the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, and the manuscript signature of the Secretary to the Treasury at lower right; a red CANCELLED stamp dated 6 OCT 1948 is applied across the lower centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | PAYABLE ON DEMAND TREASURY NOTE PER ACT 2 & 3 GEO. 6 CH.117 £1,000,000 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE DIEU ET MON DROIT London 30TH AUGUST, 1948. THIS TREASURY NOTE entitles the Bank of England to payment of ONE MILLION POUNDS on demand out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom NOT NEGOTIABLE [signature] Secretary to the Treasury (Translation: Shame on he who thinks evil of it God and my right) |
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| Comments |
The million-pound Treasury note was never intended for public hands. These "Giants" — alongside the hundred-million-pound "Titans" — were internal instruments used by the Bank of England to back the fiduciary note issue, cycling between the Issue Department and the Banking Department as accounting transfers rather than circulating currency. Waterlow & Sons had a long relationship with the Bank, though their most infamous chapter — the Waterlow-Reis affair of 1925, in which forged Portuguese escudos were printed using genuine plates — had already cost them dearly in legal damages by the time this note was produced.
Surviving examples outside the Bank's own archives are extraordinarily rare.