Collection

Printing Money for Empires: The London Houses Abroad

For more than a century, the world’s currencies were born not in their own capitals, but in London. Within a few square miles of Fleet Street and Bunhill Row, four companies — Perkins Bacon, Bradbury Wilkinson, Waterlow & Sons, and Thomas De La Rue — supplied money to dozens of countries, colonies, and protectorates. Their presses shaped the look of authority from the Caribbean to the Pacific, embedding the imperial style of engraving into the paper of nations that would one day call themselves independent.

Why London? Because empire ran on logistics. The British capital controlled the shipping lanes, insurance markets, and telegraph networks that made global printing possible. A colony might lack a mint, but it could order notes from London with the same ease as ordering ships or steel rails. The printers, clustered around the City, combined artistry with bureaucracy: they could design, engrave, print, pack, and ship currency under tight deadlines and even tighter secrecy. By the late 1800s, London had become the world’s monetary workshop.

Perkins Bacon led the way. Founded in 1819 by the American engraver Jacob Perkins, the firm introduced the hardened steel plate and transfer process that allowed thousands of identical impressions without wear — a revolution that first secured the Bank of England and later the colonies. Their clients included Mauritius, the Cape Colony, and New Zealand, whose first notes bore the same intricate lathework used for British postage stamps. Security and style merged into one exportable brand: the look of Victorian precision.

Why so many printers? Because demand exploded. By the mid-19th century, every colony, dominion, and chartered company wanted its own note issue. Competition in London was fierce but polite — each house built on the same foundations of engraving, secrecy, and international shipping. When Bradbury Wilkinson entered the field in 1856, it immediately differentiated itself through deep-tone intaglio printing and elaborate vignettes of ships, allegorical figures, and landscapes. Its notes for Australia, India, and Latin America became benchmarks of late-Victorian design.

Why did governments trust foreign printers? Because they had no alternative. Few colonial administrations possessed the equipment, paper, or trained staff to print securely at home. Counterfeiting was not only a local risk — it was a political one. A forgery scandal could undermine confidence in the entire administration. London firms offered reassurance through expertise and discretion. They kept dies, paper stock, and serial records in secure vaults, often under multiple locks. Contracts routinely included destruction clauses: when a series expired, plates were defaced in the presence of auditors. Trust was not printed on the note — it was printed in London’s reputation.

Waterlow & Sons, founded as a family printing shop in the 1810s, expanded aggressively into securities, bonds, and banknotes. By the early 20th century it printed currency for more than forty territories, including the West Indies, Portugal, and several African protectorates. Its efficiency was legendary — and occasionally disastrous. In 1925, a rogue employee reprinted 500,000 Portuguese escudo notes without authorization, triggering an international scandal later known as the Portuguese Bank Note Crisis. The case exposed the delicate balance between imperial reach and local oversight: the same distance that made London indispensable also made it unaccountable.

Why did Thomas De La Rue dominate the 20th century? Because it mastered scale. While its rivals remained boutique engravers, De La Rue industrialized security printing. It built self-contained facilities for paper making, plate engraving, and presswork under one roof, allowing production for multiple countries simultaneously. By the 1930s, it was printing for more than half the Commonwealth — from Hong Kong and Fiji to Nigeria and Cyprus. De La Rue’s success rested not just on art but on organization: standardized numbering systems, secure packing procedures, and global shipping ledgers that read like a cartographer’s dream.

Why not print locally? Many colonies tried. In India, the Security Press Nasik began operation in 1928; Australia’s Note Printing Branch opened at Fitzroy in 1913; South Africa established its own plant in the 1920s. Yet even these relied initially on British expertise, machinery, and paper. London exported not only banknotes but the very idea of how banknotes should look and feel. The engraved portrait, the guilloche border, the hierarchical typography — all were cultural imports. The empire’s aesthetic outlived the empire itself.

Why does it matter today? Because every surviving colonial specimen or proof is more than a piece of paper; it is a map of the printing world’s invisible routes. A Ceylon note printed by Waterlow, a Fijian proof from De La Rue, a Cape Colony issue from Perkins Bacon — all trace back to the same rooms where craftsmen balanced steel gravers under gaslight. They show how technology, trade, and trust converged into one industry that quietly underwrote globalization. When we handle these notes today, we hold not just currency but coordination — the machinery of empire impressed in ink. And long after the ships stopped sailing from the Thames, the style they carried endures: the London look of money.