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Here is a Northern Banking Company £4 proof note, single branch (Belfast), Second Issue, 1825-1850. This denomination is unusual and seldom seen for any of the Irish Joint Stock Banks.

Besides the Northern, I have only seen examples of £4 notes for the Provincial Bank of Ireland, which issued the denomination in its early days.

Here is an interesting example of the late use of a bank post bill by an Irish Joint Stock bank. The title of the bank, Northern Banking Company Limited, suggests that this post bill is from old stock dating back at least to the 1920’s.

Peter Symes provides an excellent overview of Bank Post Bills in the following article.
www. pjsymes.com.au/articles/PostNotes.htm#note_20

Like the Bank of Ireland, the Northern Banking Company used post bills. Here is an unissued example from the 1860’s drawn by the bank upon Bank of Ireland.

The Northern Banking Company was established as a joint stock banking company in 1824, taking advantage of a change in law which ended the monopoly position of the Bank of Ireland. The Northern Banking Company issued its first notes in 1825 incorporating a vignette of a ship along with a plough and loom and this design feature was maintained for many years right up to 1968.

I recently came across a £1 Specimen note of Manchester Bank printed in 1820 by Perkins Fairman & Heath which has the same vignette as adopted by The Northern Banking Company in 1825. It seems that the Manchester Bank never used the design and it was repurposed by the engravers and printers for the Northern Banking Company by adding the name ‘HIBERNIA’ to the ship. There are also some other minor modifications if you can spot them !