Saddleworth fiver could sell for £600

Saddleworth Bank £5 Note: up for auction

1800s note from bust bank up for auction
A BLACK and white Saddleworth five pound note, produced nearly two hundred years ago when Saddleworth printed its own money, is set to sell for up to £600 at an auction.

The valuable fiver is emblazoned with the words Saddleworth Union Bank and, although it is not dated, it was produced by the shortlived bank sometime between 1823 and 1826.

The note is a proof, so it was never issued and therefore it has remained in “as new” condition.

It is now expected to fetch between £400 and £600 when it is auctioned at Spink auction house in Bloomsbury, London, on Wednesday, April 13.

Saddleworth started printing its own money in around 1790 when a local businessman named John Wrigley started his own bank and issued seven shilling notes (35p).

Four more Saddleworth banks started up in the late 1790s and early 1800s.

Saddleworth Union Bank was founded in 1810, during the reign of King George III, by John Harrop, John Rhodes and John Roberts.

In or around 1823 the partnership in charge changed and became Harrop, Lees, Brown & Co — the names which appear on the note.

But just three years later, in 1826. after only 16 years in business Saddleworth Union Bank went bust.

Saddleworth printed its own money in the late 1700s and early 1800s because it was too difficult and dangerous to bring in big sums of cash from London, 200 miles away.

Barnaby Faull, head of the banknotes department at auctioneers Spink, said: “All towns and cities in Britain used to issue their own banknote. Merchants would get together and start up their own banks, but their notes, which were like IOUs, could only be used locally.

“So when provincial banks, like Saddleworth’s, went bust, their notes became worthless.”

In recent years the notes of these now-defunct provincial banks have become increasingly sought after and valuable.

That was confirmed at Spink in London in April, 2004, when an 1829 Wirksworth and Ashbourn Bank five pound note sold for £3,335 , setting a new world record for an English provincial banknote.