THEY have been fixed to her late father’s office wall for as long as she can remember.

But Lynda Thompson says it’s a mystery how dad Harry Dyson came to be in possession of the rare 1815-dated Huddersfield banknotes.

She said: “The business has been here since 1961 and I can always remember the notes hanging in a picture frame in my dad’s office.

“I have no idea how he acquired them or if anyone else has notes this old, but it would be really interesting to find out!”

The crumpled, yellowing notes are a pound note dated June 1815 and a guinea note from October the same year. The £1 note would be worth the equivalent of £41 in today’s money

Both notes were issued by Huddersfield Bank Ltd.

The guinea note bears the inscription: ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of one pound one shilling, here value received’.

The date, October 3, 1815, has been handwritten, with the names Benjamin and Joshua Ingham and Co printed above the signature.

Lynda said: “I’ve not taken the notes out of the picture frame because they look so fragile I am scared they will fall apart in my hands.

“They are really brown and crinkled and quite difficult to make out but look very elegant with the scrolled writing, some of which is written in ink.

“They are the same size as bank notes today, which surprises me as I thought they would be a lot bigger.

“The notes also have a Boudicca-like figure that’s obviously quite different to the figureheads we see today.”

The notes have been hanging in Mr Dyson’s Longroyd Bridge office since he set up Northern Battery Service there.

His children Lynda, Sara and Jamie later took over the business and Mr Dyson passed away in 2001.

The Kirkburton-born man was a well-known local businessman.

As well as his business he also owned a few pubs around Huddersfield in the 80s and 90s.

These included the Clothiers Arms in Stocksmoor and the Cask and Spindle in Shepley.

Lynda believes her father’s involvement with the pubs could hold the key as to where the old notes came from

She said: “It is very possible that he found the notes in one of the pubs, but it would be lovely to know if anyone had ideas where they came from.

“They are not worth a great deal – they were valued at about £100 for the pair – but as a piece of local history they are quite an interesting thing to have.”

The Huddersfield Bank Ltd was one of five banks in Huddersfield which failed in the early 19th century.

It collapsed in 1816, but in 1979 the Examiner reported that Marsh couple Mr and Mrs Martin Hirst still had one of its notes – a 1799 one guinea note – after it had been handed down through the family.

The first bank notes were issued in Huddersfield in 1779 by local printer Joseph Brook.

The year the 1815 notes were issued Napoleon was defeated at the battle of Waterloo and English poet Lord Byron married Anna Isabella Milbanke in Durham.