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1 Pound Sterling
| Issuer | Union Bank of Scotland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1846-1862 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Engraved in classical early Victorian intaglio style, the obverse centres on a vignette of an equestrian statue set before a grand neoclassical building, flanked by two oval guilloche medallions each inscribed 'ONE'. Allegorical seated female figures occupy the lower corners — one bearing a shield and leaning against a rocky outcrop — while a vertical column of circular underprint seals along the left border records the names of predecessor institutions absorbed into the Union Bank of Scotland. The main legend reads 'THE UNION BANK OF SCOTLAND / Promise to pay the Bearer on demand ONE POUND Sterling at their Office here. / Glasgow / By order of the Directors.' |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | THE UNION BANK OF SCOTLAND Promise to pay the Bearer on demand ONE POUND Sterling at their Office here. Glasgow By order of the Directors. Nº ONE Ent'd P. Acco't P. CASHIER. |
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The Union Bank of Scotland was formed in 1830 through the merger of the Glasgow Union Banking Company and several smaller west-coast institutions, giving it a distinctly commercial, mercantile character rooted in the tobacco and textile trades. By the 1840s it was one of the larger note-issuing banks in Scotland, operating under the Scottish free banking system that allowed chartered banks to issue their own paper — a legal framework that survived long after England had centralized note issue in the Bank of England.
Scottish £1 notes of this period remained in heavy everyday use because the Bank of England's own £1 notes had been withdrawn after the crisis of 1826. That decision left the field open for Scottish issuers well into the Victorian period.