The Wellington £5 was introduced in 1971 when J B Page was Chief Cashier at the Bank of England. The portrait of Queen Elizabeth is on the front and a portrait of the Duke of Wellington alongside a vignette from the Peninsular War is on the back. The first notes were printed in sheets of 18 with a continuous watermark of Wellington’s head. Within a short time, however, the Bank changed the way it printed its notes and, in 1973, instead of printing notes in sheets the Bank employed giant web presses with intaglio printing on the front only and offset litho on the back identified by a small capital 'L' next to the value in the lower left. (B336)
