20 Pounds Clydesdale Bank

Clydesdale Bank began issuing notes under its own name following its 1838 founding in Glasgow, but the long span of this series — nearly four decades — means examples can vary significantly in printed date, cashier signature, and branch endorsement. Scottish banks retained the legal right to issue their own notes long after the Bank Charter Act of 1844 effectively curtailed that privilege in England and Wales; the Act explicitly exempted Scottish and Irish institutions already in the business, an arrangement that persists to the present day.

The £20 denomination was never a note of everyday commerce. It circulated almost exclusively between businesses and banks, which partly accounts for the difficulty in finding surviving examples that show genuine wear rather than archival folds.