The original company was established in the 1850s by
Henry Bradbury and begun printing banknotes in 1856. Bradbury then died in 1860. 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 the company 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 Bradbury Wilkinson's engraver Brian Fox put it in. ==References==