1 Pound

The Bank of Adelaide was one of South Australia's long-running private trading banks, and by 1910 the Australian banking sector was still operating under a patchwork of state-chartered institutions — the Commonwealth Bank wouldn't begin note issue until 1913. Waterlow & Sons had a long relationship with colonial and dominion banks, and their work for the Bank of Adelaide followed the same London-printed, locally-issued model common across the Australian states at the time.

Private Australian banknotes from this period are genuinely scarce survivors. Most were redeemed and pulped once the Commonwealth assumed control of note issue under the Australian Notes Act of 1910 — the same year this note was produced — which made private circulation notes progressively illegal to issue, though existing stock could run down.