1 Dollar

Among the earliest paper currency issued in Fiji, this note predates the formal cession of the islands to Britain in 1874 by a matter of months. The Government of Fiji at this point meant the administration of Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau, the paramount chief who had accepted a quasi-constitutional kingship in 1871 — a fragile arrangement that collapsed almost immediately under fiscal pressure, settler unrest, and the inability to service government debt. These notes were part of that failing monetary experiment.

S. T. Leigh & Co. of Sydney were primarily a printing and stationery firm, not a specialist banknote printer. The three signature fields — Smith, Clarkson, and Woods — reflect the small colonial bureaucracy signing off on a currency that would outlast the government that issued it by only a year or two.