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10 Shillings Onchan Internment Camp
| Issuer | Onchan Internment Camp |
|---|---|
| Year | 1940-1945 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 10 Shillings (½) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Printed in green on pale green paper. Vignette at left shows the Tower of Refuge set in water within a rounded rectangular frame. Camp name in cursive script upper centre, with denomination numeral "10" in a ruled cartouche upper right flanked by "SHILLINGS". The word value "Ten Shillings" rendered in large ornate blackletter across the centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Unprinted plain paper reverse; show-through of obverse design visible due to paper thinness, with serial number faintly legible in lower centre. |
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| Comments |
Onchan was one of several internment camps established on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, holding civilians classified as "enemy aliens" — predominantly German and Austrian Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution, now interned by the British government under Defence Regulation 18B. The camp at Onchan operated its own internal economy, and this scrip was issued to allow detainees to purchase goods from the canteen without handling official British currency, which was not permitted within the camp perimeter.
The Isle of Man camps collectively produced some of the more historically charged emergency scrip of the war period. Onchan's issues are among the scarcer examples, as production quantities were small and survival rates after camp closure in the mid-1940s were low.