Clydesdale Bank £5 note Clydesdale Bank £5 note The Clydesdale Bank £5 note is a banknote of the pound sterling. It is the smallest denomination of banknote issued by the Clydesdale Bank. The current polymer note, first issued in 2015, bears an image of engineer William Arrol on the obverse and an image of the Forth Bridge on the reverse. It is the first fully polymer banknote to go into circulation in the United Kingdom. The Clydesdale Bank began issuing £5 notes in 1838, the same year as the bank's founding. Early banknotes were monochrome, and printed on one side only. The issuing of
Bank of England note issues new Series D £20 note, predominantly in purple and featuring a statue of William Shakespeare and the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet" on its reverse, was introduced on 9 July. On 5 June 1991 this note was replaced by the first Series E £20 note, featuring the physicist Michael Faraday and the Royal Institution lectures. By 1999 this note had been extensively copied, and therefore it became the first denomination to be replaced on 22 June 1999 by a second Series E design, featuring a bolder denomination figure at the top left of the obverse side, and a reverse