1 Pound Australian and European Bank

The Australian and European Bank Limited was incorporated in London in 1872 with the stated ambition of bridging British capital markets and Australian colonial commerce. It failed within a decade, going into liquidation in 1879 — which makes the window for this note's issue unusually short and the surviving population correspondingly thin.

Bradbury Wilkinson printed for a remarkable range of colonial and private banks during this period, and their work for short-lived institutions like this one rarely survived in quantity. Notes returned to London branches during wind-up were typically destroyed, not archived.