BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 79, 27 December 1928, Page 15

BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES

A CHANCELLOR’S “FORGERY.” The new Bank of England notes for £1 anti 10s. have been printed in secret at the rate of a million a day for nine months, states “The Observer”). It is expected that by the end of the year they will have replaced practically the whole of the £285,000,000 of Treasury notes now in currency. Fully a third will be changed through the banks in a few days, but people who have no bank accounts and hoard cash will probably cause the process of substitution to be carried into next year. Fear of forgery, which was rampant in the early days of Treasury notes, is one of the reasons for official reticence concerning the new issue. In 1915 the trial of the first forger of Treasury notes was held in secret so that the comparative ease with which he circulated at least £60,000 worth of spurious notes should not be known. His plant, found in a stable in Hoxton, was visited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by Sir John Bradbury (as he then was). Sir John fed the paper into the machine while Mr. McKenna turned the handle, and so good were the imitations that they deemed it necessary to write “forged” across every note they turned out. This was the only occasion in history in which a Chancellor of the Exchequer has forged currency. The last £1 notes issued by the Bank of England between 1797 and 1821, were the most unsatisfactory ever produced, and had to be abandoned in face of t]ie forger. Between February, 1797, and December, 1817, there were 870 prosecutions for the forgery of these notes, and 330 executions. In the first three months of ISIS prosecutions numbered 128. Base £1 notes poured into the bank at the rate of 100 a day. The bank's inspectors themselves often could not tell good from bad. It was an error by Mr. Christmas, a bank inspector, respecting some £1 notes that alarmed the public and led to the abolition of notes of this denomination. Chiefly on his evidence thirteen men were condemned to death at Haverfordwest for forgery. The next morning, as he was leaving his lodgings, Mr. Christmas was approached by an acquaintance, and asked his opinion about a note. He pronounced it spurious. But his acquaintance happened to know Mr. Burnett, of Portsmouth, and Mr. Burnett, insisting that the note was good, sent it to the Bank of England, which confirmed his opinion, and condemned that of its own inspector. It was represented to the Privy Council that on the uncertain judgments of Mr. Christmas thirteen mep had been condemned to death, and they were respited.