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5 Pounds - Elizabeth II Elizabeth Fry, paper
| Issuer | Bank of England |
|---|---|
| Year | 2002-2016 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in brown and green tones over a multicolour guilloche underprint, the obverse carries an intaglio portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at right, rendered after the Maklouf effigy, with a small vignette of Britannia at left. The Bank of England promise-to-pay legend runs across the centre, accompanied by the chief cashier's signature and the royal cypher EIIR beneath the portrait. A holographic strip and fine-line guilloche rosettes provide additional visual security elements across the face. |
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| Reverse lettering | BANK of ENGLAND FIVE Pounds Eliz-th Fry 1780-1845 |
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| Comments |
The Mervyn King-era Lowther series HA and HB notes are the oddity here. The varnish applied over the serial number on those early issues proved incompatible with the ink, causing the numbers to rub off with minimal handling — a significant security concern. The Bank of England withdrew them promptly after the problem was identified, making intact survivors with fully legible serials noticeably harder to find than their print run would suggest.
Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, replaced Charles Darwin on this denomination in 2002. She remains the only woman other than the monarch to have appeared on a circulating Bank of England note until the Churchill fiver superseded the series in 2016.