46 History Of Locks
The Suez Canal and
the Egyptian Vault
In another of his fascinating insights into the
history of this industry, Brian Morland, curator
of The History of Locks Museum, comments on
and describes artefacts from the collection.
»»The Suez conflict of 1956 was
the culmination of events which had its
beginnings in 1869 when a canal linking
the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea
was first proposed. Britain’s interest began
in 1875 when it was offered 44 percent of
the shares by a financially-strapped Egypt.
By 1904, the UK was in full administrative
control of the canal after years of
negotiations, relating to its neutrality
even in times of war, with other European
nations.
In about 1906, the Bank of England
acquired a demountable vault made by
Hobbs. The vault was a Progress ‘E’ which
was known as the ‘Egyptian Box Vault’ It
.
was used to house the boxes containing
the affairs and documents relating to
administrating the canal. Eventually
- and with the canal being suddenly
re-nationalised by Egypt in 1956 thus
triggering the conflict - was no longer a
British responsibility and the vault became
redundant, although I am sure that the
contents were archived somewhere.
A NEW HOME
The vault, now dismantled, languished
for many years while a new home was
sought. Surely a buyer could be found
for such a piece of history that was, at
the time, still capable of useful service?
Eventually, however, it was initially
decided to consign it to the scrap man;
but knowing of our interest in preserving
artefacts from the past, thankfully, it was
instead offered to our museum project. At
that time we had no facilities to store such
an item, let alone put it all back together;
but we did save the locks, badge and
escutcheons. It is with much regret that
in those days we had not found a way of
preserving the whole vault. An interesting
aside: while removing the locks it was
noted that once the internal pan door was
opened there was still the smell of ‘new
paint’ - the interior of that door was just as
if it had just left the factory some 100 years
earlier! The main door slab laminated
with the various specialist layers was also
clearly visible.
Diagram of how
the violence lock
and the smaller
gunpowder lock
fitted into doors. This
arrangement couldn’t
be accommodated in
the Egyptian Vault so
two special locks were
fitted both of which
had violence and
gunpowder qualities.
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An illustration of a Hobbs Progress
E door from a catalogue around
1900. Note the huge clutch bolts
which were fitted on all four sides
clenching the door to the frame.
AN IMPRESSIVE SPEC!
The Vault was a Progress ‘E’ and its
interesting how that was achieved in, by
necessity, a much smaller door. Hobbs’
specification for this class reads “Progress
E Quality: Burglar and fire resisting
safes are designed more especially for
the security requisite for Branch Banks,
Jewellers, stockbrokers, etc., and are
constructed on HOBBS & Co.’s Bent
Body system and lined throughout with
HOBBS & Co.’s Compound High and Low
Carbonised steel, hardened drill proof, the
minimum thickness of the body being one
inch (25mm) and the thickness of the door
in front of the locks and bolt mechanism
one inch and three-quarters (***mm). The
doors are provided with heavy lockcases of
angled steel carrying a series of powerful
clutch bolts on all four sides, which are
secured and controlled by one of HOBBS
& Co.’s Patents ‘Protector’ ‘Violence’
locks and one of HOBBS & Co.’s Patents
‘Protector’ gunpowder proof locks. For
the further protection of the contents of
the safe from the effects of fire the whole
of the interior of the safe is covered by an
inner door shutting closely into a rebated
frame and secured by a spring latch, the
outer door of the safe being so constructed
that, on closing, it shuts the inner door
and presses it closely on to its frame.”
The specification calls for two locks,
one a ‘Violence’ Protector, the other a
‘gunpowder proof’ Protector. The Egyptian