50 Pounds

Bradbury Wilkinson held the Egyptian note printing contract through much of the mid-twentieth century, and this high-denomination series reflects the political awkwardness of that arrangement: British-printed currency circulating in a country where anti-British sentiment was accelerating sharply toward the 1952 Revolution. The 50-pound denomination was not everyday money — at postwar exchange rates it represented a substantial sum, and these notes moved primarily through commercial banking channels rather than retail trade.

Sir Frederick Leith-Ross served as Economic Adviser to the National Bank of Egypt after a long career at the British Treasury, a posting that itself illustrated how thoroughly British financial influence was embedded in Egyptian institutions at the time.