On the security and manufacture of bank notes.

London: Published by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. 1856.

First edition. 278x215mm. pp. [6], 30. Three engraved plates of specimen bank notes for a ten pound and a hundred pound banknotes. Publisher's printed wrappers with a new lower cover and spine. Tear to top right corner of upper cover with minor loss, chipping to fore-edge and some small marginal holes in the final leaf (not affecting the text) but overall a very good copy of a commercially rare work, only two copies appearing in the auction records.
Henry Bradbury (1829-1860) was a printer who, with The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, revolutionised nature printing. 1856 saw him begin to take an interest in the printing of banknotes and the security issues that arose from this. This Royal Institution lecture, printed here by his father's firm, was intended to explain the ease with which banknotes were being forged. He advised the use of engraving on watermarks but with the proviso that if this did not work, then the Government should offer a reward to whoever could resolve the question of how best to print unforgeable banknotes. At about the same time as giving this lecture, Bradbury established his own company (Bradbury Wilkinson & Co) to engrave and print banknotes. It lasted until 1990. Bradbury himself was a troubled soul. He was accused of plagiarising his technique of nature printing from the Viennese Imperial Printer Alois Auer. This was a dispute that rumbled on, ending only in 1860 when Bradbury committed suicide by drinking prussic acid.