20 Dollars 2019, Australia
no number in katalog | - |
Years of issue: | 09.10.2019 |
Edition: | |
Signatures: | Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia: Mr. Philip Lowe, Secretary to the Treasury: Mr. Philip Gaetjens (in office from 1 August 2018 till 2 September 2019) |
Serie: | Polymer Serie |
Specimen of: | 2016 |
Material: | Polymer |
Size (mm): | 144 x 65 |
Printer: | Note Printing Australia, Craigieburn, Melbourne |
* 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:
In a transparent strip, from top to bottom:
Denominations 20.
A wind rose (compass).
A wind rose is a graphic tool used by meteorologists to give a succinct view of how wind speed and direction are typically distributed at a particular location. Historically, wind roses were predecessors of the compass rose (found on maps), as there was no differentiation between a cardinal direction and the wind which blew from such a direction. Using a polar coordinate system of gridding, the frequency of winds over a long time period is plotted by wind direction, with color bands showing wind ranges. The directions of the rose with the longest spoke show the wind direction with the greatest frequency.
The laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) (also in top right corner - on the photo of watermark) is a bird in the kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae. It is a large robust kingfisher with a whitish head and a dark eye-stripe. The upperparts are mostly dark brown but there is a mottled light-blue patch on the wing coverts. The underparts are white and the tail is barred with rufous and black. The plumage of the male and female birds is similar. The territorial call is a distinctive laugh that is often delivered by several birds at the same time, and is widely used as a stock sound effect in situations that involve a jungle setting.
The laughing kookaburra is native to eastern mainland Australia, but has also been introduced to parts of New Zealand, Tasmania, and Western Australia. It occupies dry eucalypt forest, woodland, city parks and gardens. This species is sedentary and occupies the same territory throughout the year. It is monogamous, retaining the same partner for life. A breeding pair can be accompanied by up to five fully grown non-breeding offspring from previous years that help the parents defend their territory and raise their young. The laughing kookaburra generally breeds in unlined tree holes or in excavated holes in arboreal termite nests. The usual clutch is three white eggs. The parents and the helpers incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. The youngest of the three nestlings or chicks is often killed by the older siblings. When the chicks fledge they continue to be fed by the group for six to ten weeks until they are able to forage independently.
A predator of a wide variety of small animals, the laughing kookaburra typically waits perched on a branch until it sees an animal on the ground and then flies down and pounces on its prey. Its diet includes lizards, insects, worms, snakes, mice and are known to take goldfish out of garden ponds.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classed the laughing kookaburra as a species of least concern as it has a large range and population, with no widespread threats.
Acacia buxifolia, commonly known as box-leaf wattle, is shrub species that is endemic to eastern Australia. The species occurs in dry sclerophyll forest, woodland or heath in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.[2] It is typically found on hills, slopes and plains inland from the coast and grows in sandy, clay or loam soils.
The engraving on banknote is made after this official issue "Sydney in 1848" printed by D. Wall, 76 York Street, and published by J. Fowles, 5outh Harrington Street. It is illustrated by copper-plate engravings of the principal streets, public buildings, churches, chapels, etc. from drawings by Joseph Fowles.
The building on banknote in Sydney's George Street was once owned by Mary Reibey and comprised shops and dwellings.
When Thomas Reibey died on 5 April 1811, Mary assumed sole responsibility for the care of seven children and the control of numerous business enterprises. She was no stranger to this task, having managed her husband's affairs during his frequent absences from Sydney. Now a woman of considerable wealth by her husband's businesses, Mary Reibey continued to expand her business interests. In 1812 she opened a new warehouse in George Street and in 1817 extended her shipping operations with the purchase of further vessels. In the same year, the Bank of New South Wales was founded in her house in Macquarie Place (on the intersection of Bridge and Loftus Streets).
Avers:
This portrait of Mary Reibey is based on watercolour portrait of Mary Reibey on ivory, circa 1835. i.e. about 58 years old. It is the only known portrait of Reibey by unknown artist. Today it is in State Library of New South Wales.
Mary Reibey (12 May 1777 - 30 May 1855) was an Englishwoman who was transported to Australia as a convict but went on to become a successful businesswoman in Sydney.
Mary Reibey, née Haydock, businesswoman and trader, was born on 12 May 1777 in Bury, Lancashire, England. She was convicted of horse stealing at Stafford on 21 July 1790 and sentenced to be transported for seven years. When arrested she was dressed as a boy and went under the name of James Burrow, but at her trial her identity was disclosed. The whole episode which resulted in her conviction as a felon at the age of 13 and transportation to New South Wales was probably no more than a high-spirited escapade attributable to lack of parental control, for her parents were dead and she lived with her grandmother. She arrived in Sydney in the Royal Admiral in October 1792 and was assigned as a nursemaid in the household of Major Francis Grose. On 7 September 1794 she married in Sydney Thomas Reibey, a young Irishman in the service of the East India Co., whom she had met in the transport and who had returned to Sydney in the Britannia that year.
Thomas Reibey (1769-1811) appears to have been the first free settler outside the military ring to trade. The first years of his married life were apparently spent on the Hawkesbury, where he acquired property and was engaged in the grain-carrying business; later he established himself near the waterside in what is now Macquarie Place and turned his former association with the East India Co. to advantage by importing general merchandise. He named his trading establishment Entally House, after a suburb in Calcutta. The scope of his business activity was indicated when in 1801 he became indebted to Robert Campbell senior for the sum of £160 10s., and in October 1803 he mortgaged to Campbell three Hawkesbury farms totalling 260 acres (105 ha), their buildings, crops, livestock, and boats, along with certain other property and buildings in Sydney, for a further credit advance of £150 to enable him to carry on his business. By 1803 he also owned three small boats, James, Edwin and Raven, and traded to the Hunter and Hawkesbury Rivers in coals, cedar and wheat. He entered into partnership with Edward Wills (1778?-1811) and was engaged in sealing in Bass Strait in 1805; in 1807 they bought the schooner Mercury for trade with the Pacific Islands.
During the great Hawkesbury River floods of 1806 Reibey did heroic work and saved the lives of several people. He was appointed a pilot in Port Jackson in March 1809 which suggests that he thought of giving up the sea, but in October he undertook his last voyage to China and India made necessary by losses suffered in New South Wales. He left Sydney in the Lady Barlow and returned a year later in the Mary and Sally. He died at Entally House on 5 April 1811 after a lingering illness, the origin of which was attributed to a coup de soleil which he suffered while in India. Reibey appears to have been an astute trader and kept apart from the squabbles of Governor William Bligh and his antagonists.
On the death of her husband and his partner Edward Wills a month later, Mary Reibey was left with seven children and in entire control of numerous business concerns. She was a hotel-keeper, and already had had experience in assisting her husband and managing his interests when he was absent on voyages; she soon became a very prosperous member of the group trained in the tough school of competition with American, Chinese and Indian traders. Unlike many of her contemporaries she was not litigious but proved capable of conducting her business affairs with the utmost vigour. Perhaps she preferred her own more direct methods to enforce payment of debts, for in May 1817 she was found guilty of an assault upon one of her debtors, John Walker, at Windsor.
In the eyes of her contemporaries Mary Reibey gradually rose to respectability and affluence in the new emancipist society. She was a favourite of Governor Lachlan Macquarie. She opened a new warehouse in George Street in 1812 and continued to manage her husband's ships and extended her operations by buying the John Palmer and in 1817 the brig Governor Macquarie. In 1816 she advertised for sale all her property, which included seven farms on the Hawkesbury, with the intention of returning to England. She was then said to be worth about £20,000, and by 1820 held 1000 acres (405 ha.) of land, half of them by grant. In March 1820 in the Admiral Cockburn she took her daughters Celia and Eliza to England, and in Lancashire amid the scenes of her childhood she was received with interest and admiration. After her return to Sydney next year with her daughters, her affairs continued to flourish. She made extensive investments in city property. By 1828 she had erected 'many elegant and substantial buildings in Macquarie Place, near the King's Wharf, and in the centre of George Street', and was turning her attention to Castlereagh Street. She gradually retired from active business and lived on her investments.
Mary Reibey, persevering and enterprising in everything she undertook, became legendary in the colony as the successful businesswoman. She took an interest in the church, education and works of charity. In 1825 she was appointed one of the governors of the Free Grammar School. Later Bishop William Grant Broughton commended her exertions in the cause of religion generally and of the Church of England in particular. On her retirement she lived in the suburb of Newtown until her death on 30 May 1855. The peace of her later years was disturbed a little by the publication in 1845 of Rev. Richard Cobbold's book on Margaret Catchpole, which led to understandable rumours that she was the heroine of Cobbold's colourful story.
Thomas and Mary Reibey's three sons, who founded the Tasmanian branch of the family, all followed their parents' lead in mercantile and shipping ventures. The eldest son, Thomas (b. 6 May 1796), went to sea with his father and in November 1822 became a partner of his brother as a general merchant and commission agent at Launceston, trading under the name of Thomas Reibey & Co. He died at his estate, Entally, Hadspen, near Launceston, on 3 October 1842. The second son, James Haydock (b.2 October 1798), was apprenticed in 1809 to John Campbell Burton, a merchant and agent from Bengal. In the 1820s he was trading in partnership with his elder brother and engaged in sealing and other coastal shipping activities. He was one of the first directors of the Derwent and Cornwall Banks in Van Diemen's Land in 1828. He originally settled near Hobart Town but later bought a property adjoining Entally and died in 1843. Of the four Reibey daughters, the youngest, Elizabeth Ann (b.1810), married Captain Joseph Long Innes.
The surname was variously spelt as Raby, Rabey, and Reiby, but after the death of Thomas Reibey in 1811 Reibey was usually adopted by the family. (Australian Dictionary of Biography)
On the left side is an image of Schooner "Mercury", owned by Mary Reibey.
The trading business expanded into cedar, furs and skins and, by 1807, Thomas Reibey had bought a new schooner in partnership with Edward Wills and trading was extended into the Bass Strait, the Pacific Islands and, from 1809, to China and India.
Despite her widely acknowledged business acumen and wealth, not to mention Governor Macquarie’s approval, Mary and her family could not escape the ‘convict taint’ which excluded them from Sydney’s social elite. This may have led to Mary’s decision in 1816 to sell her 12 Hawkesbury farms and her two houses in Sydney, and briefly return to England. The recession of 1811-1812 had affected business confidence, and the properties failed to sell at the price Mary believed they were worth.
The fallen prices did, however, allow her to enlarge her ship fleet with the purchase of two more ships in 1817. The "Mercury" was one of them.
Next to the schooner is the traditional “Eora nowie” (a kind of canoe). There were many Aboriginal women, at the time of Reibey, who fished on these boats in the harbor..
Between the portrait and schooner is microprint, which includes the names of the ships owned by Mary Reiby: Edwin, Governor Macquarie, James, John Palmer, Mercury and Raven.
Denomination in numeral is in top right corner.
Revers:
The engraving on banknote is made after this photo of John Flynn. Today this photo is in National Library of Australia.
John Flynn OBE (25 November 1880 - 5 May 1951) was an Australian Presbyterian minister who founded what became the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the world's first air ambulance.
The Very Reverend John Flynn, OBE, DD, "Flynn of the Inland" was born at Moliagul, central Victoria on 25 November, 1880.
The third child of Thomas and Rosetta, John was raised in Sydney by his mother’s sister after his mother died during childbirth. When he was five, John was reunited with his family at Snake Gully, near Ballarat.
The Flynn family later moved to Sunshine in Melbourne's western suburbs. Here John first heard romantic tales about Australia's vast outback when his father's business partners mounted an unsuccessful business venture to the far north of the country.
Graduating from secondary school in 1898 John began school teaching. In 1903, he joined the ministry and studied theology at Ormond College, at the University of Melbourne. Initially he financed his studies working at Church Home Missionary Centers around Victoria and in 1907 commenced a four year course in divinity at Melbourne University. Flynn graduated in 1910 and was ordained as a Minister of the Presbyterian Church on 24 January, 1911.
Throughout his training, Flynn continued to develop an interest in working in the Outback and helped other Presbyterian Ministers like Donald Cameron and Andrew Barber with missionary work in rural and remote areas throughout Victoria and South Australia. Flynn and Barber published "The Bushman's Companion¨, a very popular book of information and hints for people in the bush. In early 1911 however, John was on the road to the real outback.
In February, John Flynn arrived at the tiny Smith of Dunesk Mission at Beltana, over 500 km. north of Adelaide, South Australia. At Beltana, he saw first hand the rigours of outback life and learnt there was no medical care available to inland residents and travelers.
Within a year he was commissioned to prepare a report on life in the Northern Territory, to be presented to the Presbyterian Church in 1912. After conferences in Melbourne and Sydney, he traveled by ship to Darwin where he visited Katherine, Bathurst Island and Adelaide River researching his paper. Flynn's report which included proposals for Inland Missions, prompted the General Assembly to act upon his recommendations and they appointed Flynn the head of a new organization, the Australian Inland Mission (AIM).
John Flynn was 51 when he married the secretary of AIM, Miss Jean Baird in 1932. The years to follow saw Australia struggle through the Great Depression and Mrs Flynn became a great support to her visionary and hard-working husband.
Flynn, was twice Moderator General of the Presbyterian Church. In May 1950, Flynn attended what was to be his last Flying Doctor Council meeting; sadly he died of cancer in May the following year. Flynn was cremated and his ashes placed at rest under the Flynn Memorial, just west of Alice Springs at Mount Gillen - the very center of the vast territory to which he brought communication, medical comfort and pastoral care.
The burial service for Flynn was linked up to the Flying Doctor network and was heard at remote stations and settlements across the outback.
The RFDS and the AIM are working testimonials to Flynn's drive and vision.
Flynn once said "If you start something worthwhile - nothing can stop it."
A former Governor General of Australia, Sir William Slim once said of Flynn "His hands are stretched out like a benediction over the Inland." (Royal Flying Doctor Service)
On right side is a pedal-operated generator to power a radio receiver developed by Alfred Herman Traeger. On the banknote - a girl from the Flying Doctor service, behind a radio
Traeger was keen on using bicycle pedals and on the 17th November 1928 the famous pedal generator, which produced 180 volts DC for the valve plates, was unveiled in Adelaide, and Flynn took the famous photograph.
Traeger also developed a unique typewriter which converted letters into Morse code. This was a boon to the Morse-challenged settlers. These transceivers could receive the reply by voice telephony transmitted by the more powerful base stations. Improved sets followed.
The plan for the Flying Doctor Service was conceived in 1912 by the Rev. John Flynn, superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission of the Presbyterian Church, became practical when an Adelaide electrical engineer, A.H. Traeger, developed a low-powered, portable, pedal-driven, Morse radio transmitter-receiver with a range of 300 miles. This transceiver, together with the use of aeroplanes, made possible a system of regular long-distance medical consultations and the flying of doctors to patients in emergencies.
Alfred Herman Traeger was born into a Balaclava family on 2.8.1895. At the age of 12 he constructed a telephone link between the house and a near by tool shed. Years later he obtained a diploma in electrical engineering from the “Adelaide School of Mines”. After several posts he was offered a position as an electrical mechanic at the Hannan Brothers garage in Wakefield Street.
It was here he met John Flynn for the first time I June 1925 and sold him a 600 volt generator for £29.10s. a power source for Flynn’s early radios. Flynn returned to Adelaide a year later and engaged Traeger’s help in the promotion of radio communications in the Outback. At this time camel trains, horses, and Flynn’s “Dodge” buckboard car were used for transport in these remote areas.
In November 1926 Traeger and Flynn traveled to Hermansberg Mission and established radio contact with Adelaide using copper oxide batteries to power the filaments and a 32 volt generator, for the plates. Contact with Alice Springs occurred later, due to an incorrect coil being inserted there so they were trying to receive on the wrong frequency. Eventually the test was a success and Traeger was appointed Radio Engineer for the Australian Inland Mission. This involved travel to Cloncurry and many other areas to develop radio communications.
The survivors of that era speak in glowing terms of the Traeger radio sets and the pedal generators. The frequently used phase is "Traeger opened up the Outback" Contact with the Royal Flying Doctor Service was routine, and many lives were saved. The School of the Air provided education. It became common to switch the set on in the morning and "listen in". Problems were solved and advice given. Later arrival of telephone sets and direct private communication was therefore not popular. However the recent popularity of "Outback" travel and exploration, has resulted in the fitting of Flying Doctor mobile radios in private 4wds. Which may be used outside the coverage of the mobile net. (South Australian Medical Heritage Society Inc)
On the left side in an image of biplane, registration VH-URE, which was used by Flying doctor service.
On banknote is photo - The Barlow family looks up as the RFDS De Havilland Dragon departs Veldt Station in 1948.(Supplied: RFDS).
An empty station homestead in drought-stricken outback New South Wales may look unassuming but has gained renown as an image featured on the new $20 banknote.
Veldt Station looked a little different in 1948, when it was occupied by the Barlow family and photographed by the Royal Flying Doctor Service in a promotional photoshoot.
Now, more than 70 years on, members of the Barlow family were taken on a nostalgic RFDS flight, circling low over the property, in celebration of its newfound fame.
A photograph from that 1948 photoshoot of an RFDS De Havilland Dragon flying over the station, 170 kilometres north of Broken Hill, was selected to appear on the $20 banknote beside a portrait of the health service's founder, Reverend John Flynn. (Royal Flying Doctor Service)
The de Havilland DH.50 was a 1920s British large single-engined biplane transport built by de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome, Edgware, and licence-built in Australia, Belgium and Czechoslovakia.
In the early 1920s, Geoffrey de Havilland realised that war surplus aircraft would need replacing, so his company designed a four-passenger-cabin biplane, the DH.50, using experience gained with the earlier de Havilland DH.9. The first DH.50 (registered G-EBFN) flew in August 1923 and was used within a few days by Alan Cobham to win a prize for reliability during trial flights between Copenhagen and Gothenburg. Only 17 aircraft were built by de Havilland; the rest were produced under licence. The different aircraft had a wide variety of engine fits.
In 1924, Cobham won the King's Cup Race air race in G-EBFN averaging 106 mph. (171 km/h.). Cobham made several long-range flights with the prototype until he replaced it with the second aircraft. The second aircraft (registered G-EBFO) was re-engined with the Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar engine and was designated the DH.50J. Cobham flew the aircraft on a 16,000 mi. (25,750 km.) flight from Croydon Airport to Cape Town between November 1925 and February 1926. The aircraft was later fitted with twin floats (produced by Short Brothers at Rochester) for a survey flight of Australia in 1926. On the outward flight from England to Australia, Cobham's engineer (A.B. Elliot) was shot and killed when they were overflying the desert between Baghdad and Basra. He was replaced by Sergeant Ward, a Royal Air Force engineer who was given permission to join the flight by his commanding officer. Also in 1926, a DH.50A floatplane was used in the first international flight made by the Royal Australian Air Force. The Chief of the Air Staff, Group Captain Richard Williams, and two crew members undertook a three-month, 10,000 mi. (16,093 km.) round trip from Point Cook, Victoria to the Pacific Islands.
The aircraft was popular in Australia and de Havilland licensed its production there, leading to 16 aircraft being built. Qantas built four DH.50As and three DH.50Js, Western Australian Airlines built three DH.50As, and Larkin Aircraft Supply Company built one DH.50A.SABCA built three DH.50As in Brussels, Belgium and Aero built seven in Prague, then in Czechoslovakia. The British-built QANTAS DH.50 (G-AUER/VH-UER) was modified in Longreach, Queensland, to suit the Australian Inland Mission as an aerial ambulance. The aircraft was called Victory by the Rev. J Flynn and was the first aircraft used by the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia.
Variants
DH.50 : Single-engined light transport biplane.
DH.50A Bell Bird (G-AUEK)
DH.50A : Powered by one 240 hp. (179 kW.) Siddeley Puma inline engine.
DH.50J : The Australian-built Qantas fleet were powered by one 450 hp. (287 kW.) Bristol Jupiter Mk IV radial engine. Other radial engines were fitted in other aircraft in the DH50J series.
Microtext left of the Flynns portrait - an excerpt from his book "The Bushman's Companion", 1910:
"After all it is not necessary to have met face to face to feel a sence of companionship. We have a mutual love of the bush, and along with that, perhaps, a certain dread of it. If we have not shared discomforts and joys shoulder to shoulder, we have shared some of them, nevertheless, though widely separated. I trust, that we will share them further, occasionally, in the future."
Denomination in numeral is in lower right corner.
Comments:
Designer: Garry Emery.
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