Victorian-era Banknotes of Towns of the South Western Cape
Pierre H. Nortje (March 2025)
Introduction
In this paper, we will take a closer look at banks and businesses that issued their own banknotes during Victorian times in the Boland, Swartland and Overberg regions of the Western Cape.
Although past numismatists like Shaw (1956), Esterhuysen (1980) and Engelbrecht (1987) have written about South African paper money issues, their books touched upon South African numismatics in a broader sense. Very few books have been written exclusively about our early banknotes, with publications like Walter Bergman’s “A History of Regular and Emergency Paper Money Issues of South Africa” (1968) and Brian Hern’s “South African Banknotes & Papermoney Pre-Reserve Bank” (2010) being exceptions to the rule.
These two numismatists have identified ten banks and one other business that issued their own banknotes. The towns involved will all be found on this old map dating from the late Victorian period.
The notes were issued by the following businesses: -
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Barry and Nephews
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Caledon Agricultural Bank
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Malmesbury Agricultural and Commercial Bank
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Montagu Bank
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Paarl Bank
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Stellenbosch Bank
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Stellenbosch District Bank
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Swellendam Bank
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Wellington Bank
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Western Province Bank
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Worcester Commercial Bank
Barry and Nephews
Source: montagumuseum.co.za
Entrepreneur Joseph Barry was born in 1796 in England and, at the age of 21, was commissioned by the London Wine House, Barry & Wilkinson, to act as their agent for the export of wines from the Cape in 1817. In 1819, he opened his own general store in Burg Street in Cape Town. He later moved to the Overberg area and invited his two nephews, Thomas and John, to assist with the rapid expanse of the business, and the firm Barry & Nephews was founded on 1st June 1834.
Thomas on the left, Joseph seated and John on the right. Source: rivertonstud.co.za
In the 1850s, the firm started to issue banknotes printed by Royston and Brown, London, to the value of Five Pounds. The notes also circulated in the surrounding Overberg towns of Bredasdorp, Riversdale, and Montagu. The firm became so prosperous that it is said that the children in the streets used to sing “As jy lekker wil lewe, koop by die Barry newe” (If you want to live well, buy at the Barry nephews).
Joseph Barry was elected mayor of Cape Town in 1863 and died two years later in 1865. Half a decade later, the firm was closed down. Unissued notes are not that scarce but issued examples sell at a premium.
Caledon Agricultural Bank
Both Bergman (1968:12) and Hern (2010:28) mention this bank, established in 1861 and absorbed by Standard Bank in 1878, but it seems it did not issue any banknotes.
Malmesbury Agricultural and Commercial Bank
The bank was founded in Malmesbury, a town in the so-called Swartland in the Cape of Good Hope in 1862 and acquired by the Standard Bank of South Africa in 1878.
£10 share certificates were issued as shown by this example dated 1864.
Source: scripoworld.com
Banknotes to the value of Five Pounds were printed by Paul Solomon of Cape Town. Hern mentions that the one depicted in his catalogue, is probably unique.
However, another specimen is currently on offer from Heritage auctions, describing it as follows: -
“South Africa Malmesbury Agricultural and Commercial Bank 5 Pounds 11.6.1875 Pick S226 PMG Choice Fine 15 Net. A quaint, interesting, and very rare early banknote. This example is the first and only note of the type to be graded in the PMG Population Report. Malmesbury remains to this day a small town in the Western Cape Province, north of Cape Town. This town is known for its farms, wineries, and a mineral spring. As is typical of small-issuance notes of South Africa in the 19th century, this example is split in two and re-joined. Tape and repairs are mentioned for accuracy. Extremely rare and worthy of consideration no matter the technical grade.”
Imaged by Heritage Auctions, HA.com
The Banknotes of the Malmesbury Agricultural and Commercial Bank must be assumed to be excessively rare.
Montagu Bank
According to Hern (2010:80) the bank was established in 1861 and by the first two years, Five Pound notes to the value of £1000 were in circulation which was reduced to £150 in 1864 and by 1866 no notes were in circulation. The bank was liquidated in 1868.
However, in an article published by the Montagu museum, it states that in 1897 the old Montagu Bank's notes were found to be in circulation - almost 30 years after the bank had ceased to exist. "... Its local liquidators appear not to have destroyed the stock of unsigned Bank Notes, and the latter have evidently fallen into wrong hands, and are now being fraudently [sic] circulated." The public was made aware of the fact that these notes were no longer legal tender by way of the press.
Despite this, it seems that no issued (circulating) notes survived, but unissued notes are common: - a couple of years ago the author sold a set of these notes in serial number order.
Source: Author’s own library
Paarl Bank
According to Hern (2010:102), the bank was founded in 1852 and failed in 1890, but this seems to be incorrect. According to the Drakenstein Heemkring (Paarl’s local history archive) the Paarl Bank was founded in September 1853, and was liquidated in March 1891.
On 31 January 1891 the Paarl District Advertiser ran the following advertisement “De Paarlsche Bank in liquidatie – buitengewone belangrijke publieke verkoping van zeer kosbare vaste en losse goederen aan de Paarl op Maandag 9 Februarie”. Earlier that month the liquidators’ report attributed the bank’s collapse to “ernstige fouten van oordeel”. (Serious errors of judgement were thus made).
Picture left: A modern picture of the old Paarl bank building to which many changes were made in 1902. During discussion of these changes, it was suggested to enlarge the building beyond the stoep. This change was rejected as it would encroach significantly on the area where the customers normally tethered their horses. Picture source: Johann Claassen. The picture on the right received from Adrian Jordi of a Five Pounds issue of 1874 printed by Nissan, Parker & Arnold.
Stellenbosch Bank & Stellenbosch District Bank
In her master’s thesis submitted to the University of Grahamstown, Jane Mary Garner (1983:117) writes about the sordid end of the Stellenbosch Bank (1854-1877).
“In November 1876, a recently elected director, a Mr. de Waal, refused to take office before the bank's books had been investigated, but before this could be done, Mr. Jacobus Wege - the Chairman of the bank committed suicide with rat poison on Wednesday 8 November. Two days later, the Chief Cashier, Mr. William Johannes Herold, was arrested and charged with embezzlement and fraud. The bank was said to have lost over £60,000”.
Despite an effort by both the shareholders and directors, the bank went into final liquidation on 10 January 1877.
Half a decade later, in 1882, it was resurrected as the Stellenbosch District Bank, and the institution was much more fortunate the second time around. It was the only small private bank in the Cape Colony that was at the end of that century not absorbed by the larger establishments like the African Banking Corporation and Standard Bank. It operated for a century until it merged with Boland Bank and only ceased to operate in the 1990s.
Both the Stellenbosch Bank and its successor, the Stellenbosch District Bank, issued Five Pounds banknotes, and bar the name depicted on the notes, they are virtually the same as can be seen from the following pictures from Hern’s Handbook. Both issues were printed by Paul Solomon.
Paul Solomon & Co, also printed the notes of the Malmesbury Agricultural and Commercial Bank.
This company is well known to philatelists interested in the Cape of Good Hope stamp series, as they were also the printers of the so-called “woodblock” Cape triangular stamps.
This picture of their old premises in St George’s Street, was published in Matthy Esterhuysen’s Ons Gelderfenis (1980:85).
Swellendam Bank
The bank was formed in 1852 and was taken over by Standard Bank in 1877. To the right is a picture of a share certificate of £5 dated in the year of its inception.
It is interesting to note that Joseph Barry (of the firm Barry and Nephews that we discussed earlier in this paper) was one of the bank’s 12 directors and appointed chairman while his nephew, John Barry became chairman of the Montagu Bank.
Hern mentions that he has found three different types of Five Pounds note issues for this bank and all were unissued. He mentions that one of the issues was printed by William Brown & Co of London while the other two were printed by C.J. Roberts of Cape Town.
Source: Scripoworld
These notes are all extremely scarce and the note shown below was sold in March 2024 for $5,520.00 (just over R100 000) by Heritage auctions.
Imaged by Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Wellington Bank
The town of Wellington (the author grew up and went to school there) lies approximately 12 kilometres to the north of its larger neighbouring town Paarl. It was originally known as Val du Charron or Wagenmakersvallei (Valley of the wagon maker) when the French Huguenots settled there toward the end of the seventeenth century.
After the formal establishment of the town in 1840, the name was changed to Wellington in honour of the Duke of Wellington, the famous soldier who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. In the same year, the first church building was erected, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde “Moederkerk” to which many alterations were later undertaken. Source picture left: Michael Lemon Portfolio. Picture right: Pinterest
Seventeen years later, in 1857, the Wellington Bank was established and like many of the other smaller banks of the Colony of the period, was absorbed by Standard Bank towards the end of that century. In terms of surviving specimens, the dates show that the bank issued its own notes (a Five Pounds denomination) from 1879 to 1888.
These notes are rare and a specimen was sold in November 2023 for $7,200 (Approx. R134 000 then) by Heritage auctions – see picture below and note the medallion depiction of the Duke of Wellington.
Imaged by Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Western Province Bank
The bank was established in Paarl in 1847 and branches were later opened in Montagu and Malmesbury. In 1891 it was absorbed into the African Banking Corporation which itself was bought out and merged with Standard Bank of South Africa in 1920.
The bank issued Five Pound notes that were according to Hern printed by Barry Arnold & Co of Cape Town. This is somewhat confusing as the Heritage Portal (2015) in an article entitled Walking Tour of Historic Paarl reports that the original bank building (which still stands) had its window shutters placed on the inside for security because bank notes were printed on the premises.
Picture left of the original bank building. A close-up (old) picture available on artefacts.co.za clearly shows the name “WP Bank”. A more modern picture shows the date “1847”. The picture of the note is from Hern’s handbook.
In an advertisement of De Zuid Afrikaan of 14 June 1879, Barry Arnold & Co features as dealers in office stationary and specialized in the engraving of paper articles. They were situated on the corner of Adderley and Longmarket Street. If they were indeed the printers of the banknotes, one would expect that the printing would have been done on their own premises.
Hern mentions that both issued and unissued notes exist.
In June 2022, the auction house Straus & Co offered a painting of the bank building by David Botha in 1965. On the back of the painting is inscribed “177 Main Road is a National Monument and the only South African home to have figured on a bank note of the Paarl African Bank”. Strauss and Co notes that “This building was home to the Western Province Bank and following the 1891 purchase by the African Banking Corporation, featured on their bank notes”.
The author initially found this confusing, as the note shown in Hern’s Handbook does not show a building, but then found another example of a note from this bank that is unrecorded by Hern. It is shown on page 45 of Engelbrecht’s Money in South Africa (1987). Note that both an issued (dated 1883) and unissued note are shown with the bank building clearly displayed.
In the last week of March 2025 Heritage Auctions will be offering the following note on auction.
Imaged by Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Worcester Commercial Bank
The bank was established in 1850 and was absorbed by the African Banking Corporation in the early 1890s. According to an article by Netwerk 24 on 31 October 2016, the bank building was situated on the corner of Hoog and Porter streets, where the Pick and Pay building stands today.
Hern’s picture of the Five Pound note shown on page 139 of his handbook is the same note that was sold on 17 October 2024 by Heritage auctions for $12,000.00 (R215 000)
Imaged by Heritage Auctions, HA.com
The note shows a vignette of the bank building.
Summary
As we have seen, with the exception of the Barry & Nephews and Montagu Bank issues, all the other notes we have discussed in this paper are exceedingly rare and command very high prices when they are offered on auction. The author copied the serial numbers of examples that were found in both hard copy publications and internet sources, with the sources provided in the third column below. (The Barry & Nephews and Montagu Bank issues are excluded).
Sources:
Adrian Jordi, Some Early Banknotes of South Africa, Western Cape Numismatic Society - November 2021
Brian Hern, South African Banknotes & Papermoney Pre-Reserve Bank (2010)
C.L. Engelbrecht, Money in South Africa (1987)
E.M. Shaw, A History of Currency in South Africa (1956)
George E. Cuhaj, Standard Catalog of World Paper Money - Specialized Issue (2014)
Heritage Auctions, https://www.ha.com/
Matthy Esterhuisen, Ons Gelderfenis (1980)
Spink & Son, https://www.spink.com/
W. Bergman, A History of Regular and Emergency Paper Money Issues of South Africa” (1968)
A final observation
A question that must be asked is this: Why were all the banknotes issued by institutions and private banks, at least those that we have discussed in this paper, only issued in one denomination, being the £5?
In his article entitled South African Paper Money by RF Kennedy that appeared in Africana Curiosities (1973:73), the author tells us that between 1822 and 1891, the issue of notes by firms or individuals of notes less than 50 Rixdaalders (£3.15) was forbidden by law. Some banks in the Eastern Cape, like those at Queenstown, Colesberg and Somerset East did issue £4 notes. However, those of the Western Cape seemed to prefer the £5 denomination.
When the era of the small private banks came to an end in the early 1890s, and the larger banking corporations started to appear, a much wider denomination range was introduced, being the £1, £5, £10 and £20, and from 1916 the ten shillings (10/-).