20 Pounds Sterling

The British Linen Company — formally a linen trading concern chartered in 1746 — had long abandoned textiles by the time this note was in use, operating purely as a bank while retaining its anachronistic name until a 1906 rebranding as the British Linen Bank. The £20 denomination placed this squarely in commercial and wholesale use; retail customers rarely handled sums of this size.

Scottish banks of this period retained the right to issue their own notes under rules that English banks had lost decades earlier — a distinction that made Scottish private issue a genuine operational advantage, not a formality. The British Linen's notes circulated on the strength of institutional reputation rather than any central guarantee.

Surviving examples from this run are genuinely uncommon, as high-denomination commercial notes tended to move through clearing quickly and return to the bank for cancellation rather than accumulating in everyday pockets.