The Bank of Canada was founded in 1934 and on 11 March 1935, issued its first series of banknotes. The notes were unilingual, and matching versions of all denominations were available in either French or English.
Changes in Canadian government legislation that required the Bank of Canada to produce bilingual bank notes led to the printing of the second series of notes in 1937 - this time bilingual.
This $20 banknote is part of that first series of bilingual Canadian banknotes. The 1937 Gordon-Towers C/E Prefix $20 banknote features King George VI on the front, while the back depicts a fertility allegory of a seated woman with a sickle. The note is black with an olive green tint.