1 Pound Sterling 1927, Kingdom of Great Britain
in Banknotes Book | Number: TR19a |
Years of issue: | 07.1927 |
Edition: | -- |
Signatures: | Secretary to the treasury: Sir Norman Fenwick Warren Fisher |
Serie: | England |
Specimen of: | 01.1917 |
Material: | Cotton fiber |
Size (mm): | 151 х 84 |
Printer: | TDLR (Thomas de la Rue & Company), London |
* All pictures marked are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.

Description
Watermark:
Inscription: "ONE POUND" in two lines.
Lower are the letters GR and the crown.
In the lower right corner is the national flower and a symbol of Wales - Yellow Narcissus (Daffodil).
In the top right corner is the national flower and a symbol of England - Tudors rose.
In the top left corner is the national flower and a symbol of Scotland - Thistle.
In the lower left corner is the national flower and a symbol of Northern Ireland - Shamrock.
Across all banknote are zigzag lines, as pattern.
Avers:
On the right side is HM The King George V.
On the left side is the Saint George killing the Dragon.
At the top is an inscription: "UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND".
Denomination in numeral is in lower left corner.
Revers:
Old engraving of Westminster Palace and river Thames in front of it, made during 1890-th.
The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Commonly known as the Houses of Parliament after its tenants, the Palace lies on the Middlesex bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster, in central London. Its name, which derives from the neighboring Westminster Abbey, may refer to either of two structures: the Old Palace, a medieval building complex that was destroyed by fire in 1834, and its replacement New Palace that stands today. For ceremonial purposes, the palace retains its original style and status as a royal residence.
The first royal palace was built on the site in the eleventh century, and Westminster was the primary London residence of the Kings of England until a fire destroyed much of the complex in 1512. After that, it served as the home of Parliament, which had been meeting there since the thirteenth century, and the seat of the Royal Courts of Justice, based in and around Westminster Hall. In 1834, an even greater fire ravaged the heavily rebuilt Houses of Parliament, and the only structures of significance to survive were Westminster Hall, the Cloisters of St Stephen's, the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft and the Jewel Tower.
The subsequent competition for the reconstruction of the Palace was won by architect Charles Barry and his design for a building in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The remains of the Old Palace (with the exception of the detached Jewel Tower) were incorporated in its much larger replacement, which contains over 1,100 rooms organized symmetrically around two series of courtyards. Part of the New Palace's area of 3.24 hectares (8 acres) was reclaimed from the Thames, which is the setting of its principal facade, the 266-metre (873 ft.) river front. Barry was assisted by Augustus W. N. Pugin, a leading authority on Gothic architecture and style, who provided designs for the decoration and furnishings of the Palace. Construction started in 1840 and lasted for thirty years, suffering great delays and cost overruns, as well as the death of both leading architects; works for the interior decoration continued intermittently well into the twentieth century. Major conservation work has been carried out since, to reverse the effects of London's air pollution, and extensive repairs took place after the Second World War, including the reconstruction of the Commons Chamber following its bombing in 1941.
The Palace is one of the centers of political life in the United Kingdom; "Westminster" has become a metonym for the UK Parliament, and the Westminster system of government has taken its name after it. The Elizabeth Tower, in particular, which is often referred to by the name of its main bell, "Big Ben", is an iconic landmark of London and the United Kingdom in general.
Comments:
The banknote remained in circulation until July 1933.
Designed and engraved by Australian sculptor Bertram Mackennal (HM The King George V and The Palace of Westminster).
Vignette of St.George killing the dragon made after the work by Italian engraver Benedetto Pisrucci.
Printed by photogravure in sheets of 21 (3X7).
Bank note paper manufactured by "WILLIAM JOYNSON AND CO".
Sir Warren Fisher (1879-1948) was a British civil servant.
Fisher was born in Croydon, London on 22 September 1879. He was educated at the Dragon School (Oxford), Winchester College and Hertford College, Oxford University. He matriculated in 1898, graduating with a first class degree in Classical Moderations in 1900 and a second in Greats in 1902.
After failing to get into the Indian Civil Service and the medical examination for the Royal Navy, he came a lowly 15th in the Inland Revenue entrance exams in 1903. Sixteen years later he was Permanent Secretary of the Treasury and the first ever Head of the Home Civil Service. Fisher has been described as one of the most influential British civil servants of his generation.
Fisher gave the Civil Service a cohesion it previously lacked and did more to reform it than any man in the preceding fifty years. He increased the importance of the Treasury. He advanced the interests of women in the civil service and at one point described himself as a feminist. However, he was also a controversial figure: his colleague Maurice Hankey, with whom he sometimes co-operated and sometimes competed on issues of imperial defence policy, once described him as "rather mad", and he was criticised for his attempts to control the appointments of senior civil servants across Whitehall. His generally unsuccessful attempts to gain a say in Foreign Office appointments were much resented, and gave rise to unfounded accusations that he had been an appeaser (despite a robust defence of his reputation by the arch-antiappeaser Lord Robert Vansittart).
He married Mary Ann Lucie (Maysie) Thomas on 24 April 1906 and had two sons, but the marriage ended in separation in 1921. When she died in 1970 she was almost penniless, having being defrauded by a couple named Lawless in the 1950s. His elder son Norman Fisher (d. 1982) made his career in the Royal Navy, surviving two submarine disasters before the war and attaining the rank of captain; his second son Robin died in 1988.
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