RBS has confirmed Mary Somerville will appear on its new £10 note, after concerns of fraud in its online poll were raised.

Mary Somerville, who will now become the first woman on an RBS note other than the Queen, was on track to top the poll when a late surge for Thomas Telford saw him race into first place as voting closed.

Bank officials suspected deception as the engineer went from a dismal third place with 500 likes to win the race with 5,100 votes, apparently accruing thousands of supporters in just a few hours.

Following an investigation that found the flurry of last minute votes for Telford came from outside of the UK, RBS decided to choose Mary Somerville as the winner - she had been the clear leader throughout the process with the vast majority of her votes coming from the UK.

Malcolm Buchanan, chair of RBS’s Scotland board, said: “I was overwhelmed by the response to this initiative – a first for the Royal Bank of Scotland - and would like to thank all those who took the time to vote. Having the opportunity to choose the face of our new £10 notes obviously meant a great deal to a great number of people.

“Any of our final nominees would have been worthy winners and we wanted to make sure that our choice properly reflected the wishes of those who took part. Mary Somerville’s immense contribution to science and her determination to succeed against all the odds clearly resonate as much today as they did during her lifetime.”

Mary Somerville, born in 1780, was a prominent mathematician and scientist who was jointly nominated to be the first female member of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1835.

After her death in 1872 she was honoured by the founding of the Oxford college that bears her name in 1879.

Her face will grace the bank's new polymer note due for circulation in the second half of 2017.