½ Crown Onchan Internment Camp

Onchan was one of several internment camps established on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, primarily housing German and Austrian civilian internees — many of them Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution, only to be interned by Britain under the sweeping 1940 enemy alien policy. The camps operated as near-autonomous communities, and internal scrip was introduced to allow economic activity within the wire without giving internees access to sterling.

The Onchan camp scrip is among the more historically charged of the Isle of Man issues precisely because of who issued it and to whom it circulated — anti-fascist refugees using enemy-currency denominated in British coin values.