1 Pound Commercial Bank of Scotland

The Commercial Bank of Scotland was a major Edinburgh-based joint-stock bank that had operated independently since 1810, but by the mid-1920s it was already moving toward the merger with the National Bank of Scotland that would eventually come in 1959. This note falls within a relatively narrow window of issue, and Waterlow & Sons — a London firm with extensive experience printing colonial and dominion currency — handled production throughout the series.

Scottish commercial banks retained the right to issue their own pound notes under arrangements predating the Bank Charter Act of 1844, which applied differently north of the border. That issuing privilege, fiercely defended by Scottish institutions, is precisely why this note exists at all.