Chubb, Wolverhampton, England

This lock is fairly rare as it is a foreign made time lock. While there were many foreign safe and vault makers, the time lock business was dominated by the United States. Chubb was started by Jeremiah and Charles Chubb brothers in 1818 building safes and locks for the financial industry. They began building safes in 1835 in their Wolverhampton factory which is still in existence today (see photos above). The lock dates from the 1960's.

The Chubb company did not begin to market time locks under their own name until the 1960's. Almost all safe makers - Yale, Diebold, Mosler, Consolidated Banker's Dustproof as well as Chubb did not actually manufacture their own time lock mechanisms. This was subcontracted to a company, experienced in making time movements. In the 19th and early quarter of the 20th century this was most often the E. Howard Company of Boston, Massachusetts. Illinois Watch and Waltham pocket watch movements were also sometimes used. Only Sargent and Greenleaf made their own time locks.

Unlike most of the locks made during the later 20th century, this lock retains many of the quality features found in more vintage locks dating from the early part of the century. The front of the movements look much like Sargent and Greenleaf's with their characteristic wagon wheel dial design. To my knowledge this is the only company to employ a platform escapement mounted horizontally above the movement since its discontinuation by the Consolidated Time Lock Company around 1900. This model also employs the 'cello style' gravity driven drop bolt, first invented by Sargent in the late 1870's and used by them through the 1950's. It is also the only time like I know of that has a seconds dial indicator. This is in the form of a rotating black and white disk located behind the main dial at the 12 o'clock position. This is necessary as one cannot actually see the balance wheel to verify that the movement is functioning. The movements are robust and well made containing eleven jewels each and were made by Smiths Industries which was later merged into TI Group plc in 2000. 6 7/8"w x 6"h x 2 3/4"d, movement #67 and #88. file 154

There are several websites devoted to Chubb and his lock company. http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/locks/gazetteer/chubbs.htm ,  http://www.chubbarchive.co.uk/