Bank of England note issues England Mark Carney announced that a newly designed £10 banknote, featuring novelist Jane Austen, would be issued in 2017. The campaign for a woman to appear celebrated the choice as "a brilliant day". The date of issue was subsequently confirmed as 14 September 2017. Like the £5 note featuring Churchill, the new £10 note is made from polymer rather than cotton paper. It depicts: £20 notes, in white, appeared in 1725 and continued to be issued until 1943. They ceased to be legal tender in 1945. After World War II, the £20 denomination did not reappear until 1970, when the
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