5 Pounds

Malta was still a British Crown Colony when this note circulated, and the Government of Malta — rather than a central bank — remained the direct issuing authority, a colonial-era arrangement that persisted well into the independence transition. Bradbury Wilkinson, the New Malden firm responsible for a substantial portion of British colonial currency production in the postwar decades, handled the printing here as they did for much of the series.

Independence came in September 1964, rendering these notes politically anomalous almost immediately. The Central Bank of Malta was not established until 1968, so the Government continued issuing currency through that gap — which partly explains the relatively extended date range for a colonial high-denomination note.