These were similar in appearance and design to the identification and security passes described above. The difference was that they were specifically used to identify their holders to the works pay staff as an indication of proof of their identity when they queued weekly at the works pay office to collect their respective pay packets. In large factories, employing many thousands of workers, such a system was essential to ensure that the pre-prepared wage packets held at the work’s pay office were handed over by the pay staff to the correct employee. Paychecks were particularly common in privately owned and operated factories. In many instances, a single check could serve as both a pay identification and security identification pass. Where a check was intended specifically for use as a pay collection identification device it often bore the word “PAY” in its obverse legend, often in the check’s upper field below its suspension hole.

A Great War period un-issued employee’s paycheck for the privately-owned company Kynoch Limited. The example illustrated was issued at their Thames Explosives Works at Kynochtown, Essex.

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