The Scottish £100 Note featuring Dumfriesshire born Dr Flora Murray, one of Britain’s early woman doctors and a prominent suffragette has been named one of the world’s most beautiful notes.
Bank of Scotland unveiled its latest £100 polymer note, featuring Dr Flora Murray from Dalton near Dumfries in April 2022, The new £100 polymer note entered circulation on 9th May 2022 – a day after Flora’s birthday.
The International Bank Note Society (IBNS) announced that its voting membership has for the first time selected the Philippines Central Bank to receive its annual prestigious “Bank Note of the Year Award” for 2022. With nearly 100 new banknotes released worldwide during 2022, only 19 were deemed of sufficiently new design to be member nominated. From the onset of voting the Philippines 1000 Piso note was the overwhelming favorite. Close runners-up were Northern Ireland’s (Ulster Bank) 50 Pound bill which features flora/fauna/workers and Scotland’s (Bank of Scotland) 100 Pound note which features Sir Walter Scott and Dr. Flora Murray. Rounding out the top six vote getters were Algeria’s 2000 Dinar (martyr’s memorial with minaret), the Barbados 50 Dollar (former prime minister Errol Barrow) and Egypt’s 10 Pound (mosque with pyramid and ancient queen) banknotes. All six continue the popular polymer trend in banknote printing.
Winners of recent IBNS Banknote of the Year competition are all miniature works of art that represent their nation’s popular themes. These winners should help provide a superb template as other countries consider how they eventually design and promote their own new banknotes.
Dr Flora Murray, began her career as a probationer nurse at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, aged 21. And from there studied at the London School of Medicine for Women, the University of Durham and, eventually, the University of Cambridge.
Together with her partner, fellow medical practitioner and daughter of the first English women to qualify as a doctor, Louisa Garrett Anderson, she set up the Women’s Hospital for Children which provided health care for working class children.
But despite her extensive skills and savvy leadership style, Flora struggled to progress in her career.
You see, until the start of the First World War women doctors were only permitted to treat women and children and could not study general medicine and surgery either. This is one of the reasons why Flora – already a staunch women’s rights advocate – believed so passionately in women’s suffrage.
Alongside delivering medical support to suffragettes recovering from hunger strike and other injuries sustained through their activism, Flora spoke regularly at public gatherings and became one of the key figures for the movement in Scotland.
She also joined the 1911 census protest – whereby Emmeline Pankhurst rallied women suffragettes to refuse the 1911 census in protest of the government’s unwillingness to give women the vote.
A guide has been produced covering the Bank Note of 2022 nominations in great detail. Explore the visible security features of each of the notes; Iridescent inks, watermarks, security strips and holographic features, as well as the Ultraviolet features.
Download a copy to learn more about the nominations.
Bank of Scotland unveils its latest £100 polymer note, featuring Dr Flora Murray from Dalton near Dumfries. The new £100 polymer note will enter circulation on 9th May 2022 – a day after Flora’s birthday. And on the same day, the Bank of Scotland will also auction off 94 rare notes with an ‘FM’ prefix to celebrate Flora using her initials, alongside ‘AA’ prefix notes, at Spink House, London.
