1 Pound - Union Bank of Australia Limited

The Union Bank of Australia Limited was incorporated in London in 1837 and operated as one of the major Anglo-Australian trading banks well into the twentieth century, when it merged with the Bank of Australasia in 1951 to form the Australia and New Zealand Bank. By 1923, the Commonwealth Bank had already held a monopoly on note issue in Australia for several years — the 1910 Australian Notes Act and subsequent legislation had progressively squeezed out private bank circulation. This note, therefore, almost certainly was not issued for general circulation within Australia but rather for use in one of the bank's remaining Pacific or overseas branch operations.

Waterlow & Sons produced banknote work for dozens of colonial and private banking clients during this period, maintaining security printing contracts long after many issuing banks had lost their circulation privileges.