70 Pounds White, 1778 issue

The "White Notes" — so called for their plain, unprinted reverse — were the Bank of England's workhorse instruments for high-value transactions throughout the late Georgian period. These were not notes in the popular sense; they circulated almost exclusively among merchants, attorneys, and the financial houses of the City, rarely passing through more than a handful of hands before being presented for payment and cancelled. The £70 denomination is among the more unusual in the series, sitting awkwardly between the round-figure values that dominated commercial use.

Forgery was a persistent problem with these notes during the Napoleonic Wars period, and the Bank prosecuted forgers aggressively — sometimes capitally. The design's very plainness, paradoxically, made imitation easier.