5 Pounds

The Union Bank of Newfoundland was chartered in 1854 and operated as one of only a handful of private chartered banks on the island during a period when Newfoundland was still a self-governing British dominion with no central bank of its own. The American Bank Note Company in New York handled security printing for numerous colonial and quasi-colonial issuers throughout this period, and the Union Bank was a consistent client — the relationship was practical rather than prestigious, driven by the absence of any comparable engraving facility closer to St. John's.

The Union Bank collapsed in 1894 during the catastrophic bank crash that wiped out nearly the entire Newfoundland banking sector, leaving depositors with significant losses. Notes from this earlier series, issued across an eighteen-year window, rarely survived that crisis intact.