5 Pounds Union Bank of Scotland

The Union Bank of Scotland traced its roots to the Glasgow Union Banking Company, founded in 1830, and by the time this series was issued it had become one of Scotland's more commercially aggressive joint-stock banks, with heavy exposure to industrial and shipping clients on the Clyde. Scottish commercial banks retained their note-issuing privileges under the Currency and Bank Notes Act of 1928, which consolidated but did not eliminate the provincial note-issuing landscape — this note exists because of that political compromise.

Waterlow & Sons printed Scottish commercial banknotes throughout this period with considerable consistency; the same London firm was simultaneously producing notes for colonial and dominion issuers across the Empire. The Union Bank itself was absorbed by the Bank of Scotland in 1955, which terminated the series well before the last authorized date.