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200 Pounds White, 1778 issue
| Issuer | Bank of England |
|---|---|
| Year | 1778-1807 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 211 × 133 mm |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | [17]93 BANK 9 April 1793 I Promise to pay to_ or Bearer on Demand the Sum of TWO HUNDRED Pounds London on the 9 day of April 1793 For the Govr and Compa of the Bank of England £TWO HUNDRED Ent.d |
| Reverse description | The reverse is blank, consistent with the traditional unprinted "white note" format used by the Bank of England during this period. The £200 denomination was first introduced between 1725 and 1745, with earlier examples being slightly smaller in format. Notes of this denomination were issued exclusively by the head office in London and were not produced by any of the Bank of England's Country Branches. |
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| Comments |
Bank of England "white notes" of this period were handwritten instruments, not printed ones in any modern sense — the body text was engraved and press-transferred, but the payee name, date, cashier's signature, and serial number were all added by hand at the point of issue. A cashier's clerk filled in each note individually, which means no two examples from this run are identical in the way a printed note would be.
The £200 denomination placed this firmly in the world of merchant banking and large commercial settlements. Retail trade never saw notes of this size. The 1797 suspension of cash payments — when the Bank stopped redeeming notes in specie due to wartime financial pressure — affected the entire white note series, and circulation patterns shifted accordingly during the long Restriction Period that followed.
Forgery of these notes was a capital offence, and executions for uttering forged Bank of England paper continued into the 1820s.