Original bank note sold at auction
The handwritten notes make this one pound unique
The City Bank of Sydney first issue one pound note of 1864, type 1 is elusive. This recently discovered Renniks MVR1 example, serial 291, imprint of De Gruchy and Leigh, Sydney, of January 4, 1864 is a type that lasted just one year. You will find a mention of it in online references, and in the Renniks and Pick catalogues but actual examples are exceedingly rare.
Not one sale is recorded in Michael P Vort-Ronald’s comprehensive listings in Australian Private Banknotes 1817–1910 Sales 1972-2022. Thanks to Mick’s helpful advice, and the recent discovery of an example in New Zealand, there will be a listing in his next edition due out soon. And an illustration of an issued note is now available in the Australian Coin Review. An unissued specimen is held in the State Library of New South Wales.
Many type 2 and 2a City Bank one pound banknotes are known in private hands but not the issued type 1 notes. Moreover, no earlier issue of any denomination than this 1864 pound is recorded as changing hands in 50 years. Little more need be said about its significance.
The note has a long pedigree, with a fascinating story. It begins with the City Bank of Sydney itself, established in 1863. After a share float closing in September 1863, the bank made its first loan on December 22, 1863. (Source: Jubilee souvenir: the City Bank of Sydney, 1863-1913, selfpublished, 1913).
Surviving the 1893 banking crisis, the bank was absorbed in turn by the Australian Bank of Commerce in 1918, and the Bank of New South Wales in 1931, to become part of today’s Westpac.
The City Bank’s first notes were issued in 1864. But we know more than that about this note because its issue across the counter of the bank is fully recorded in the handwriting of the person who received it: wine and spirit merchant Charles Thorne at the bank’s opening, as shown by Thorne’s handwriting on the back, “First City Bank (One Pound) Note issued over the counter to Charles Thorne Wine & Spirit Merchant No. 2 Dangars Stores 10 Clarence Street, Sydney Monday morning, 10 O’Clock, 1st February 1864”.
He signed it and dated it “1/2/64 Sydney NSW” below. We can be confident the writing is Thorne’s as there is another sample recorded and available online in the Sydney city archives, (https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1543289), in which Thorne protests about his water rates charge of £8, apparently successfully as his rates were reduced to £6.
It seems unlikely that Thorne held the note for long. By July 1865, an application was made on his behalf for a certificate of conformity in insolvency. (New South Wales Government Gazette, July 15, 1865 p.1668). The year 1865 was difficult for many in business. The 1913 history of the City Bank also records:
“In 1864 and 1865 things were disturbed: the native war in New Zealand was being carried on, and in Sydney there were failures and considerable depression, which became more intensified by reason of a severe drought which affected pastoral and mining interests. In 1866 affairs got worse, the drought continued, there was a fall in the price of wool, and a day of humiliation and prayer was proclaimed.”
There is then a gap in the history of the note, but thanks to younger members of the family which held the note for most of the 160 years after the bank’s founding, we know much more of its history.
On the top front of the note is in handwriting of a mature writer, “The owner of this Rose Joseph is…” The rest of the writing is faded and indecipherable, but from what we know of the family it seems likely to be Rosetta “Rose” Miriam Joseph, 1868–1931, an older half-sister who remained single, of Elsie Florence Nathan (nee Joseph), 1885 to 1963, whose family continued to own the note.
Also written on the back of the note is “You are a monkey Rose” in a child’s handwriting, suggesting that a much younger sibling wrote it about Rose.
As it happens, the family was a highly important for commerce in New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain. Elsie Florence Joseph married Frederick Joseph Nathan (1871-1938), of the Glaxo company which established New Zealand’s first dried milk plant at Bunnythorpe near Palmerston North, leading the way for the modern development of New Zealand’s huge dairy industry. Glaxo ultimately became a part of major British pharmaceutical company, Glaxo Smith Kline, now named GSK.
Members of the Joseph and Nathan families were prominent in both New Zealand and Australian commercial life. They regularly travelled across the Tasman and to Great Britain. Interestingly, one of the early chairmen of the City Bank was Samuel Aaron Joseph (1824-1898). He also had a New Zealand connection, beginning a business in New Zealand in January 1843.
He became skilled in the Ma¯ori language and interpreted for Governor Sir George Grey. He moved to Sydney in 1856 and with Jacob Montefiore founded the well-known firm of Montefiore, Joseph & Co. There is a good chance Samuel Joseph would also have known the Joseph family into whose hands the note passed.
Normally graffiti on a banknote reduces its value. Here, though, is an example where the history of the note is close to fully recorded, thanks to the writing. Removing it would expunge a major piece of history from the record.
The note appeared in Mowbray Collectable’s auction on March 19 with an estimate of $12,500. It was snapped up by an Australian buyer.
Written on the back of the note is “You are a monkey Rose” in a child’s handwriting, suggesting that a much younger sibling wrote it about Rose.