Scotland’s Clydesdale Bank unveils new note family reported for introduction in autumn 2009

At Edinburgh Castle on January 14, 2009, First Minister Alex Salmond and the Clydesdale Bank’s chief operating officer David Thorburn announced that a new series of banknotes had been designed to celebrate the best of Scotland’s heritage, people, and culture, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns and the Year of Homecoming 2009. The new notes will enter circulation in late autumn 2009.

The new family of banknotes celebrates famous Scots on the front and the five World Heritage Sites in Scotland on the back, drawing on the Homecoming themes of Burns, Great Minds and Innovation, Culture and Heritage. The new designs are:

£5: Scientist Sir Alexander Fleming and St. Kilda

£10: Poet Robert Burns and The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh

£20: King Robert the Bruce and New Lanark

£50: Suffragette Elsie Inglis and The Antonine Wall

£100: Architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Heart of Neolithic Orkney

These notes will be the first in the UK to have a new “depth image” security hologram, whatever that means. From the images released to the press, it appears only the 100-pound note has a hologram on front to the right of the portrait. Also, the notes bear the signature of David Thorburn.