5 Pounds Bank of New South Wales

The Bank of New South Wales was Australia's oldest trading bank, established in 1817, and by the 1870s it was issuing notes across multiple colonies with no uniform regulatory framework governing private bank currency. Charles Skipper & East — the same London firm responsible for engraved work across numerous colonial and South African issues — produced the plate, a common arrangement where prestige engraving was contracted abroad regardless of where the notes ultimately circulated.

Private bank issues from New South Wales in this period were swept out of circulation by the Banking Act of 1910, which handed note-issuing rights exclusively to the Commonwealth. Most surviving examples from this run show heavy teller use.