100 Pounds White

The "White Note" series was printed entirely in black on white paper — no colored inks, no elaborate chromolithography — a deliberate policy the Bank maintained for over two centuries on the basis that the engraved letterpress work was itself the security. Forgery, rather than convenience, dictated the format: the Bank prosecuted counterfeiters aggressively throughout the 19th century, and the death penalty for forgery wasn't abolished in England until 1832.

The £100 denomination was strictly a instrument of wholesale finance and interbank settlement. Ordinary commerce never saw these. The series was withdrawn in 1943 as a wartime measure — German Operation Bernhard had demonstrated how vulnerable high-denomination notes were to sophisticated counterfeiting at scale.