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Auction: 26009 - World & British Banknotes featuring the Jersey Collection Part II
Lot: 252

Siege of Khartoum, Sudan, *TOP POP* 50 Pounds, 25th April 1884, serial number 14, with remarkable provenance, (Pick S111), in PMG holder 62 Uncirculated, hole, small tear, rare.

The note is accompanied by a type-written letter from Mr K. Charlton, former Confidential Clerk to Sir Robert Howe, the Governor-General of Sudan from 1947-54. The letter reads:

"These are genuine currency notes issued by General Gordon the Governor-General of the Sudan during the siege of Khartoum by Mohammed Ahmed El Mahdi from March 1883 to 25th January 1885.

There were some 15,000 people in the town when General-Gordon arrived there on the 18th February 1884 to evacuate the garrison and civil population to the safety of Egypt. He succeeded in evacuating several hundred civilians by steamer up the Nile to Berber and then by camel train to Egypt before the Mahdi’s forces cut off the escape route.

When Khartoum fell the Mahdi’s troops pillaged the town and killed most of the male inhabitants. The women and children were shared out as slaves among the tribal leaders. General Gordon was killed on the steps of his palace and his head severed from his body and taken to the Mahdi’s camp across the Nile at Omdurman where it was left hanging in a tree in front of the Mahdi’s tent.

Towards the end of the siege everything was in short supply, even the normal Egyptian currency as the fleeing refugees took all the cash they could raise back with them to Egypt. General Gordon then had his accountant prepare currency notes by hand and they were used to pay the troops and the merchants from whom he was buying desperately needed supplies for the town.

The translation of the Arabic writing on the notes. In the oblong the amount in words, in the smaller design beneath it, circle, rectangle, diamond, etc., the registered number of the note. Underneath this is. “This Money we accept to pay from the Treasury Khartoum or Egypt after six months from the date 25th April 1884. Gordon Pasha.” The large stamp, Sudan Governor-General’s Office and the smaller stamp is Gordon’s personal stamp showing his name in Arabic.

These notes were given to me by the Governor-General of the Sudan Sir Robert Howe in 1954."

Signed K. Charlton,
Ex Confidential Clerk to His Excellency the Governor-General

Also included is an original vellum envelope from "The Palace, Khartoum" and two more hand- and type-written notes relating to the banknotes.

A very rare note with extraordinary provenance tracing back through a successor of General Gordan to the Palace at Khartoum (1 banknote and 4 other pieces)

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Estimate
£1,000 to £1,500

Starting price
£700