Bradbury Wilkinson and Company

1906 Romanian stamp printed by Bradbury, Wilkinson

Bradbury Wilkinson & Co were an English engraver and printer of banknotes, postage stamps and share certificates.

History

In 1856, the original company was started by Henry Bradbury, who died in 1860. In 1873–74, the firm built an imposing six-storey workshop, for engraving printing plates, in Holborn, London at 25 and 27 Farringdon Road, which is now a Grade II-listed building.

In 1903, the company was acquired by the American Bank Note Company. In 1917, it moved to New Malden in Surrey still operating as Bradbury-Wilkinson as a wholly owned subsidiary of ABNC.

In 1983, Bradbury Wilkinson created a form of polymer banknote using Du Pont's Tyvek material; this was marketed as Bradvek and used to print 1-pound banknotes for the Isle of Man. In 1986 it was acquired by De La Rue. The site is now occupied by the Shannon Corner Tesco supermarket. The last Bradbury-Wilkinson plant was shut down by De La Rue in 1990.

In 2015 a Seychelles 50 rupee banknote (worth £2.50 or $4), originally issued between 1968 and 1973, featuring Queen Elizabeth II and covertly depicting the word "sex" was sold at auction in the UK for £336 (around $500). Many think the engraver Brian Fox of Bradbury & Wilkinson the printers put it in.

Stamp Mexico, Centennial of Independence, 1910 date of first issue, printed by Bradbury Wilkinson and Company, classified according to the Scott Catalogue 2009 A44 Vol. 4 pag. 895 and according to the Mexican philatelic collection. Scanned copy from the philatelic collection of the Fonseca Padilla family, Jalisco, Mexico.

References

• BBC factsheet
• Duggleby, Vincent - English Paper Money: Treasury and Bank of England Notes 1694–2002 (Pam West, 2002)
• Byatt, Derrick - Promises to Pay: First Three Hundred Years of Bank of England Notes (Spink & Son Ltd, 1994)
• Mexican philatelic collection [1]
• BBC News Seychelles 'sex' banknote auctioned in Dorchester [2]
• BBC News Seychelles 'sex' banknote to be sold at auction [3]