HISTORY&HERITAGE
SPONSORED BY SKS
Thomas Hart: The First
Challenge to Chubb
By Brian Morland, Curator of the Heritage
Collection of Locks and Keys.
Those early inventors of patent locks
were caught up in the excitement of
what they believed their invention to be
the perfect lock.
Quite naturally, in order to promote a
new idea or principle the advantages of
an idea over, say a competitor’s product
would be to point out and demonstrate
the weaknesses of that competing
product. A natural course of action, and
is a marketing technique continued to
^ Chubb detector lock in
the form of a 6”safe lock,
unnecessarily complicated for
normal use. HoL collection.
80
THE SEP/OCT 2013 ISSUE
SPONSORED BY ADVANCED KEYS
Brian Morland
this day. This story is
just a fragment in the
continuous development
of locks and concerns Thomas Hart the
first to claim he could pick open Chubb’s
Detector lock.
Thomas Hart was born in 1800 in
Wolverhampton, to parents Samuel, a
tin plate worker, and Elizabeth. Thomas
married in 1839 to Emma Whele, and
produced four children, Thomas (1840),
Chubbs New Patent Detector
lock of 1833 introduced shortly
after the Hart Challenge. v
^ Contemporary documents giving great
insights as to exactly what happened.
Sarah (1846), another Thomas (1849)
and Ann (1856). Interestingly Thomas
and Elizabeth’s third child, also named
Thomas (1849-1934) and also a locksmith
carrying on in the tradition of his father’s
trade, worked for both Milner and
Chubb.
Chubb had successfully promoted
his ‘detecting Mechanism’ to the extent
that it soon became a household name
earning a very enviable reputation. The
popularity of Chubb’s lock in those early
years was such that in order to meet
demand it was outsourced. One such
subcontractor was Joseph Richards, a
Wolverhampton locksmith, who in turn,
and unknown to Chubb, further subcontracted to another skilled locksmith,
Thomas Hart.
In those days locks were made by
hand, lock cases and components
were fettled and fabricated from metal
strips, plates, bars and castings, perhaps
12 at a time. You may have noticed
in some early locks all the parts were
numbered either with stamped in dots
or numerals or even roman numerals.
This was to remind the locksmith which
parts were for which lock in the series
he was making at the time. He would
make 12 cases, 12 bolts, 12 sets of levers
and so on, finally and individually
dressing each part to complete the lock.
Parts were not interchangeable as in
modern locks. What this meant was
that the locksmith had a very clear and
intimate knowledge of how each of the
components interacted with each other
and how the key interacted on the whole.
He would also have realised weaknesses
and improvements, especially in relation
to efficiency of the principle or the cost
in terms of time taken to produce the
product for its intended market.
To read more, visit www.locksmithjournal.co.uk