Hammer

£30

VICTORIAN PROMISSORY NOTE FOR FIFTY POUNDS
issued by The Bank of Scotland.
Note: This promissory note was prepared to raise money but the Bank of Scotland had no part in the enterprise and in fact threatened to sue. It is unlikely that these notes were ever issued: certainly none survive in an issued state.
The claimant was Alexander Humphrys of Birmingham who was claiming ownership of Nova Scotia. Partly through the efforts of a French fortune teller he became convinced he was descended from Sir William Alexander of Menstrie, Scotland (1567-1640) who had received charters for the ownership of Nova Scotia from James I in 1621 and Charles I in 1625. Humphrys obtained a license to change his name to Alexander, then to obtain a declaration to be the lawful heir to the Alexander family. Despite a court ruling against an element of his claim in 1830 he was nevertheless granted the land in a ceremony at Edinburgh Castle in 1831, but over the next 10 years was challenged by the Crown in the courts which decreed some of the documents to be forged, and so in 1851 he emigrated to America and eventually abandoned his claims.