20 Pounds Sterling

The National Bank of Scotland was established in 1825 and operated as one of Scotland's major joint-stock banks until its merger with the Commercial Bank of Scotland in 1959 to form the National Commercial Bank. Scottish banks retained — and still retain — the legal right to issue their own notes, a privilege dating to arrangements predating the Bank Charter Act of 1844, which applied to England and Wales but left the Scottish system largely intact.

A £20 denomination in 1862 was a substantial sum, roughly equivalent to a skilled tradesman's monthly wage several times over. Notes at this level moved between merchants and institutions, not through everyday retail trade, and surviving examples from this period are uncommon precisely because heavy commercial use left few in acceptable condition.

Cotton-based paper of this period was produced domestically, with Scottish banks sourcing from specialist papermakers — Cowan's Mill at Penicuik supplied several Edinburgh issuers through much of the nineteenth century.