1 Pound 1930-1948

The National Bank of Egypt was a private, British-dominated institution until nationalization in 1951, and the successive signatory names on this series — Hornsby, Cook, Nixon, Leith-Ross — map almost precisely onto the British grip on Egyptian monetary affairs through a turbulent two decades. Nixon's term coincides with the wartime period when Egypt effectively functioned as a staging and supply base for Allied operations in North Africa; British military spending flooded the Egyptian economy with currency, and the pound came under serious inflationary pressure despite — or partly because of — sterling area controls imposed in 1940.

Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility printed this series throughout. The 1948 Leith-Ross signature is the rarest of the run by some margin.