10 Pounds Sterling 1969, Kingdom of Great Britain
| in Banknotes Book | Number: SC818 |
| Years of issue: | 19.03.1969 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | General Managers: Mr. A. P. Robertson and Mr. J. B. Burke |
| Serie: | Scotland |
| Specimen of: | 19.03.1969 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 151 x 84 |
| Printer: | Bradbury, Wilkinson & Company Limited, New Malden |
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Description
Watermark:
The engraving on banknote is made after this portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Scottish painter Sir Henry Raeburn, 1822. Oil on canvas. Today is in Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Second floor, Gallery 7. Was purchased from private collection with assistance from the Art Fund in 1935.
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE (15 August 1771 - 21 September 1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet.
Scott was the first English-language author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers in Europe, Australia, and North America. His novels and poetry are still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor.
Although primarily remembered for his extensive literary works and his political engagement, Scott was an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, and throughout his career combined his writing and editing work with his daily occupation as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire.
A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an active member of the Highland Society and served a long term as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820-1832).
His portrait on banknote is in recognition of Scott's defense of the Scottish £1 note, under threat from the Westminster Parliament in 1826. Writing a series of public letters under the pseudonym "Malachi Malagrowther", Scott successfully led the campaign against currency reform in Scotland and the Scots were allowed to keep their pound notes.
Avers:
The Emblem of the bank The Royal Bank of Scotland.
Now one of the most well-known financial brands in the world, the Royal Bank of Scotland was founded in Edinburgh in 1727, thirty-two years after its rival, the Bank of Scotland. The Bank of Scotland, as it happens, was founded by an Englishman, John Holland - just as the Bank of England was founded by a Scot, Sir William Paterson.
The Scottish Parliament had declared in 1689 that King James VII had, by his absence, forfeited the throne, and handed the Crown to his Dutch rival William of Orange, who had already seized the throne in England. The House of Hanover succeeded to the throne of the new United Kingdom which had been created in 1707, but the Bank of Scotland was suspected of harbouring Jacobite sympathies. The London government was keen to help out Scottish merchants loyal to the Hanoverians and so, in 1727, King George granted a royal charter to the new Royal Bank of Scotland.
Surprisingly for an institution founded in 1727, the Royal Bank of Scotland did not acquire its own coat of arms until 1960. The arms granted by Lord Lyon were quickly displayed throughout the bank on stationery, uniforms, and currency, as well as the many branches and offices of the RBS. Less than a decade later, however, research showed that consumers had a difficult time differentiating the Royal Bank’s coat of arms from those of the Bank of Scotland, the Clydesdale Bank, and other banks on the High Streets of Scottish towns.
Revers:
The Tay Road Bridge (Scottish Gaelic: Drochaid-rathaid na Tatha) carries the A92 road across the Firth of Tay from Newport-on-Tay in Fife to Dundee in Scotland, just downstream of the Tay Rail Bridge. At around 2,250 meters (1.4 mi.), it is one of the longest road bridges in Europe, and was opened in 1966, replacing the old Tay ferry.
As part of the modernisation projects of the 1950s, a road bridge across the Tay had been considered for several years. In August 1958 a traffic census was undertaken and test bores were taken in order to establish the most suitable location for a bridge crossing. Despite government opposition to the project, local lobbying, led by Dundee businessman Sir Douglas Hardie, brought a final agreement to the cost of the project.
The bridge was designed by consulting engineers WA Fairhurst & Partners of Glasgow and Dundee, under the direct supervision of the firm's founding partner, civil engineer William Fairhurst. Construction began in March 1963 with the infilling of West Graving Dock, King William Dock and Earl Grey docks in Dundee. The civil engineering construction was undertaken by Duncan Logan Construction Ltd. and steelwork by Dorman Long (Bridge and Engineering) Ltd. Controversially, construction required the demolition of Dundee's Royal Arch where Queen Victoria had entered the city on a royal visit. Rubble from the Victoria arch was used as foundations for the on-ramp.
The bridge consists of 42 spans with a navigation channel located closer to the Fife side. During the construction of the bridge, 140,000 tons of concrete, 4,600 tons of mild steel and 8,150 tons of structural steel was used. The bridge has a gradient of 1:81 running from 9.75 m. (32.0 ft.) above sea-level in Dundee to 38.1 m. (125.0 ft.) above sea-level in Fife.
The bridge took 3½ years to build at a cost of approximately £6 million. Following the installation of the final 65 ton girder on 4 July 1966, the completed bridge was officially opened by the Queen Mother on 18 August 1966. A newsreel of this is available in the British Pathe web archive.
For four days, many took advantage of the toll-free period to cross the bridge.
Viewing platforms were once a feature of the Bridge, however they were removed in the 1990s.
In 2002, a Tay FM competition to find a slogan for the bridge was abandoned after the slogan with the most votes – "It’s all downhill to Dundee" – (reflecting the bridge’s downward angle) was deemed unsuitable.
In September 2017, after a successful campaign by Wave 102 to give the bridge a nickname, the bridge was officially nicknamed “Steve” by Chris Duke and Councillor Stewart Hunter. The nickname “Steve” won an online poll to nickname the Bridge.
The Tay Road Bridge was built to replace the former Tay ferry service, popularly known in Dundee as "the Fifie". A passenger and vehicle ferry service across the River Tay operated from Craigie Pier, Dundee, to Newport-on-Tay. Until the opening of the road bridge,three vessels operated the service, namely the B. L. Nairn (a paddle steamer built in 1929); the Abercraig and the Scotscraig (diesel powered, fitted with Voith Schneider propellers and built in the Caledon Shipyard in Dundee). The paddle steamer was only used when the other ferries needed maintenance. The paddle steamer was scrapped while the Scotscraig and Abercraig ended their days in Malta.
The construction of the southern approach road resulted in the railway line from Tayport to Dundee terminating in Newport.The opening of the road bridge in 1966 eventually led to the closure of the line in 1969. 
Behind the bridge is Dundee visible.
Dundee (Scots: Dundee Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Dè or Dùn Dèagh) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2018 was 148,750, giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or 6,420/sq mi, the second-highest in Scotland. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland.
Historically part of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late XII century and established itself as an important east coast trading port. Rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the XIX century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry. This, along with its other major industries, gave Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism".
Today, Dundee is promoted as "One City, Many Discoveries" in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed at Discovery Point. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom's digital entertainment industry, including mobile app development and gaming. Dundee has two universities – the University of Dundee and the Abertay University. In 2014, Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UK's first UNESCO City of Design for its diverse contributions to fields including medical research, comics and video games.
A unique feature of Dundee is that its two professional football clubs, Dundee F.C. and Dundee United F.C., have stadiums all but adjacent to each other.
With the decline of traditional industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate and reinvent itself as a cultural center. In pursuit of this, a £1 billion master plan to regenerate and to reconnect the Waterfront to the city centre started in 2001 and is expected to be completed within a 30-year period. The V&A Dundee – the first branch of the V&A to operate outside of London – is the main centre piece of the waterfront project.
In recent years, Dundee's international profile has risen. GQ magazine named Dundee the 'Coolest Little City in Britain' in 2015 and The Wall Street Journal ranked Dundee at number 5 on its 'Worldwide Hot Destinations' list for 2018.
So far, I have only been able to identify a few Dundee objects visible on the banknote. I numbered them on the photo of the banknote itself.
Let's go in order:
1) The Dundee Law is a hill in the centre of Dundee, Scotland. The Law is what remains of a volcanic sill and it is the highest point in the centre of Dundee. With a large war memorial at its summit, it is the most prominent feature on the local skyline.
The Dundee Law, which may take its name from the Gaelic word for mound or, more likely, from Anglo-Saxon hlāw (modern Scots law) meaning a grave-mound, is the remains of a volcanic sill. Lava was forced through fissures in old red sandstone from a volcanic area miles to the west. Actions by subsequent rain, wind and ice movements eroded the sandstone. The glaciers of the ice ages deposited more debris around the base creating a crag and tail. The shallow gradient of the slopes on the north and eastern sides of the law suggest a north easterly movement of ice flows. The hill's summit is over 500 feet above sea level. Despite the derivation of "Law" suggesting it would be tautological to do so, the Law is commonly referred to as the "Law Hill".
Archaeological evidence of burials suggest that the law may have been used by human settlers 3500 years ago. During the Iron Age it was the site of a Pictish settlement. Roman pottery has been found on the law, suggesting that the Romans may have used it as a lookout post in the first century. The Law played host to an important event on 13 April 1689: Viscount Dundee raised the Stuart Royal Standard on the Law, which marked the beginning of the first Jacobite rising.
The Law has a tunnel which runs through it. Closed in the 1980s, it used to be used for the railway to Newtyle. In 2014 a campaign was started to reopen it as a tourist attraction.
A war memorial to the fallen in both world wars was constructed atop the summit which was first unveiled on 16 May 1925. In the years 1992 to 1994 the facilities on the summit of the Law were upgraded by Dundee District Council and Scottish Enterprise Tayside with additional funding from the European Commission's regional development fund. The memorial is lit with a large flame at its top on a number of significant days, viz: 25 September (in memory of the Battle of Loos, in which many members of the local Black Watch regiment lost their lives), 24 October (United Nations Day), 11 November (Armistice Day) and Remembrance Sunday.
2) Cox's Stack is an 85m (282 ft) high chimney in the Lochee area of the city and one of the remaining relics of Dundee's once buoyant jute industry. It was constructed in 1866 and formed part of the Cox Brothers' Camperdown Works, one of the largest jute factories of its time. Modelled on an Italian campanile, the Stack was designed by local architect James MacLaren. (www.dundee.com)
3) The construction of three multistorey housing units in Dundee was made by Bett-Bison in the 1967. The housing was of an experimental nature in terms of its reliance on prefabricated parts and its speed of erection - all three were completed in just 26 weeks. This was due to the need to meet a high demand for new housing in the 1960s. (National Library of Scotland)
4) St. Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Dundee, Scotland. It is the cathedral and administrative centre of the Diocese of Brechin in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
In 1847, Alexander Penrose Forbes was elected new Bishop of Brechin and chose to make Dundee his permanent residence.
At the time of Bishop Forbes' arrival, St. Paul's Chapel met in rooms in nearby Castle Street, which Forbes considered to be dreary and "unworthy of the worship of the Almighty". Thus, he "urged his people to take on the holy work of building, to the glory of God, a stately church", a place which would offer refuge to the many poor that lived in the surrounding tenements.
The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid on 21 July 1853 and it was completed in 1855. It was designed by George Gilbert Scott and is in the style of the Middle or Decorated period of Gothic architecture.
The total cost of the building exceeded £14,000, and ten years passed before the congregation could pay off all the debts incurred. The church was dedicated on All Saints Day, 1 November 1865.
St. Paul's was raised to cathedral status in 1905 and is now a category A listed building.
There is a peal of 8 bells; the tenor bell weighs 23 cwt.
5) The Steeple Church occupies the western part of the historic "City Churches" building in Dundee, Scotland. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland.
The "City Churches" are located in the city centre, adjacent to the Overgate shopping centre. The building is unusual as having two congregations within the same structure - the other congregation (at the eastern end) is Dundee Parish Church (St Mary's). The middle building ceased functioning as a place of worship in the early 1990s.
The Steeple Church congregation falls into the evangelical wing of the Church of Scotland.
The former minister (2000 - 2013) was the Rev David M. Clark, who transferred to Prestwick. The present minister (2014-) is the Rev Robert Calvert.
Comments:
Although, Scotland is not an independent state, and is part of the UK. Three Scottish banks have the right to issue their own banknotes. Officially, these notes are not called "Scottish pounds" and their denomination designated in pound sterling. In the strict sense of the term "Legal Tender" banknotes of Scottish banks are not even legal tender in Scotland, but can be taken throughout the United Kingdom.
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