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1 Pound City of Glasgow Bank
| Issuer | City of Glasgow Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1871-1876 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Pound |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The upper portion of the note is dominated by a seated female allegorical figure, flanked at left by the Scottish royal arms and at right by the arms of the City of Glasgow; the royal arms are repeated at the foot of the design. The central letterpress panel carries the promise-to-pay text within a frame of fine guilloche ornamental borders. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed entirely in blue, the reverse centres on a large oval vignette of the City of Glasgow coat of arms — displaying the bell, bird, tree, and fish motifs — encircled by the motto 'LET GLASGOW FLOURISH' with the lower legend 'BY THE PREACHING OF THE WORD'. Two symmetrical circular guilloche rosettes, each bearing the interlaced monogram 'CGB', flank the central oval, and the printer's imprint 'Gilmour & Dean, Glasgow' appears at the foot. |
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| Comments |
The City of Glasgow Bank collapsed in October 1878 in one of the most catastrophic bank failures in British history. The directors had been falsifying balance sheets for years, concealing losses from speculative lending. When the fraud was exposed, the bank's unlimited liability structure meant shareholders — many of them small tradespeople and professionals — were personally ruined. Over 1,200 of them were made bankrupt. The disaster directly accelerated the push for limited liability as standard in Scottish banking.
Notes from the 1871–1876 period predate the collapse by several years but were issued under the same fraudulent management. Gilmour & Dean were the bank's regular Glasgow printers throughout this period.