It is the highest denomination of banknote currently issued for public circulation by the Bank of England.

These notes were written on one side only and bore the name of the payee, the date, and the signature of the issuing cashier.

This reddish note replaced Christopher Wren with John Houblon, the first governor of the Bank of England, on the reverse.

This is an image in a broken green thread that moves as the note is viewed from different angles.

Some 227,299 nominations covering 989 scientists were received, and the shortlist eventually consisted of (in individuals and pairs) Mary Anning, Paul Dirac, Rosalind Franklin, William Herschel and Caroline Herschel, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, Stephen Hawking, James Clerk Maxwell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Ernest Rutherford, Frederick Sanger, and Alan Turing.

[14] Peter Sands, an advisor to the British Government and former Chief Executive of Standard Chartered, has raised concern with the Bank of England over high denomination notes and their role in tax evasion.

He claimed that scrapping the £50, and other high denomination notes such as the 1000 Swiss francs, €500 and 100 United States dollars, would reduce financial crime.