Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks

by A. C. Hobbs; George Dodd

The lock-manufacture in South Staffordshire is of a remarkable character, comprised as it is within so small an area. Although Wolverhampton is known commercially as the chief depôt of the English lock trade, yet it is at Willenhall, three or four miles eastward of that town, that the actual manufacture is chiefly carried on. When the Commission was appointed a few years ago to inquire into the condition of children employed in trades and manufactures, Mr. R. H. Horne was deputed to examine the Wolverhampton district; and his report is too curious, and too closely connected with our present subject, to be passed unnoticed. We here give an abstract of such parts of his report as bear reference to the lock-makers of Willenhall.

Almost the entire industry of Willenhall is in the three articles of currycombs, locks and keys, and articles connected incidentally with locks, such as bolts and latches. At the time Mr. Horne wrote, in 1841, there were among the master manufacturers 268 locksmiths, 76 key-makers, 14 bolt-makers, and 13 latch-makers; besides many small masters living in such out-of-the-way corners that they escaped enumeration. In the Post-Office Directory of that district, of later date, there are entries of rather a curious character. In the first place it is observable that different kinds of locks are made by different persons, each manufacturer confining his operations apparently to one kind of lock; one is a rim-lock maker, another a trunk-lock maker, a third a cabinet-lock maker, a fourth a padlock maker, a fifth a mortice-lock maker, and so on. But a much more singular feature is, that lock-making is combined with retail dealing of a totally different kind; thus among the occupations put down opposite the names of individuals are, “key-stamper and beer-retailer,” “door-lock maker and beer-retailer,” “grocer and trunk-lock maker,” “Malt-Shovel tavern-keeper and rim-lock maker,” “lock-maker and provision-dealer,” “grocer and key-maker,” “cabinet-lock maker and Woolpack tavern,” “key-stamper and registrar of births, &c.,” “Hope and Anchor and cabinet-lock maker,” “auctioneer and locksmith,” “rim-lock and varnish maker,” and so forth. It is probable that in some of these cases the wife attends to the retail shop, while the husband attends to the workshop.

Among all the lock-manufacturers of the town there are scarcely half a dozen in what may be termed a large way of business; there are many who employ from five to fifteen pairs of hands, but the great majority are small masters who are themselves working mechanics, and are aided by apprentices from one to four in number, perhaps two on an average. Mr. Horne thinks that there were not fewer than a thousand boys at work in the town, chiefly upon locks and keys. The children and young persons are employed at all ages, from seven up to manhood; from the earliest age, indeed, in which they are able to hold a file. It is a characteristic fact, where so many of the male inhabitants are employed at the bench from such early years, that a certain distortion of figure is observable; the right shoulder-blade becomes displaced and projects, and the right leg crooks and bends inwards at the knee, like the letter K,—it is the leg which is hindermost in standing at the vice. The right hand also has frequently a marked distortion. “Almost every thing it holds takes the position of the file. If the poor man carries a limp lettuce or a limper mackarel from Wolverhampton market, they are never dangled, but always held like the file. If he carry nothing, his right hand is in just the same position.”

The hours of labour among the small masters are scarcely brought within any system at all; for all the work is piecework, not paid for by the day or hour; and each man works as long as he likes, or as long as his business impels him. Some will file away from four or five in the morning till eleven or twelve at night. In the larger shops, where there are many hands employed, they come to work when they like, leave when they like, and do as much work as they like when there; this freedom of action being spread over a working-day of perhaps sixteen hours. The masters say that the men prefer this system, or want of system, to any thing more precise and regular. In the beginning of the week there is often much idleness and holiday-keeping; and the Willenhall men make up for this by a day of sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty hours’ work towards the end of the week. In the beginning of the week, men and boys have defined hours and definite periods for meals; but towards the end of the week, when hurry and drive are the order of the day, they eat their meals while at work, and bolt their victuals standing. “You see a locksmith and his two apprentices, with a plate before each of them, heaped up (at the best of times, when they can get such things) with potatoes and lumps of something or other, but seldom meat, and a large slice of bread in one hand; your attention is called off for two minutes, and on turning round again, you see the man and boys filing at the vice.”

In the processes as carried on at Willenhall, they are applied chiefly to the manufacture of mortice, box, trunk, rim, cabinet, case, bright, dead, closet, and padlocks. Except some of the parts of the brass-work, which are cast, these locks are made by forging, pressing, and filing. The forging is a light kind of smith’s work, aided by a light hammer and a small pair of bellows; children and young persons are largely employed in this process. Pressing is a kind of work by which certain parts of the lock are pressed or stamped out. The presses are of various sizes, but all require much strength to work them; the press has a horizontal lever, crossing the top of a vertical screw, and there is generally an iron weight at the end of each arm or half of the lever to increase the power; one of the lever arms is grasped in the right hand of the presser, and whirled round with a jerk; while the fingers of the left hand place the metal in its proper position, and remove it when it has been stamped or pressed. There is, of course, a die or cutter attached to the press, to cut the metal in the proper form. Sometimes the press has only one arm to the lever, and no weight at the end of this, so that the labour of working is much increased. Children and youths are employed at this process, so far as their strength will admit. The last process, filing, is that by which the separate pieces are shaped and smoothed for adjustment in their proper places; here children and youths are almost exclusively employed; they stand upon blocks so as to be able to reach the vice, and then work away with the file, unrelieved by any change in the nature of the process.

In key-making the processes may be said to comprise forging, stamping, piercing, and filing. The forging differs very little from that required in making the pieces for a lock. The stamping is effected by placing the end of an iron wire, taken red-hot from the forge, into one half of a key-mould made in a block or kind of anvil; a heavy weight is then raised between an upright framework, in the grooves of which it runs by means of a cord; the cord is drawn by both hands, with the assistance of one foot in a stirrup attached to the end of the cord; at the bottom of the weight thus raised is the other half of the key-mould. Such being the nature of the stamping apparatus, the process is thus conducted: the foot in the stirrup being suddenly raised, and the cord loosed, the weight falls upon the red-hot wire, and the blow stamps it into the two moulds or half-moulds, which are brought accurately together by means of the slides or side-grooves in the framework. The rough key is also trimmed and cleared by the pressing apparatus; that is, the surplus metal all round is cut off by a single blow; and the metal which fills up the ring or handle of the key is cut or pressed out in the same way. This is a heavy part of the key-work, for which the labour of men rather than that of boys is required. The process of piercing the key consists in making the pipe or barrel, required for most keys, except those which are intended to open a lock for both sides; the pipe is drilled by a small machine worked with the foot like a lathe; it is a process requiring more skill than strength, relatively to other parts of the manufacture. The filing of a key is important; for not only is the whole key made bright, but the wards are cut by the file and chisel. Boys and youths are employed in filing the common keys; but those of better quality are entrusted to men.

The apprenticeship system is carried on to a remarkable extent among the lock and key makers of Willenhall. The small masters take apprentices at any age at which they can work. Some of them employ only apprentices, never paying wages for journeymen, but always taking on a new apprentice as soon as a former one is out of his time. The boys are mostly procured from other towns, and they bring with them a small apprenticeship-fee and a suit or two of clothes. They are bound to the masters by legal indenture or contract; and the masters board and lodge and clothe them during their apprenticeship. One consequence of this system is, that when the apprentice has served his time, he is almost driven to become a small master himself from want of employment as a journeyman; and he then takes apprentices as his master did before him. This accounts for the fact that in Willenhall there are few large manufacturers and few journeymen; while there is a constantly-increasing number of small masters and of apprentices.

The Willenhall makers nearly all look to the Wolverhampton factors or dealers for a market for their wares—so far at least as concerns locks and keys; there are some other articles which they sell more frequently to Birmingham houses. The master and an apprentice, or perhaps two, generally trudge off to Wolverhampton on a Saturday, bearing the stock of locks which he may have to sell; and the money receipts for the locks or keys sold are usually in part spent at the large market of Wolverhampton previous to the homeward journey. The Willenhall men take contracts at so low a price as to prevent the competition of other places; it is stated, that whatever be prices elsewhere, nothing can come below the Willenhall prices for cheap locks. The men work hard for small returns, and yet they have a strong yearning for their own town. A Willenhall girl will seldom marry except to a townsman; and thus they intermarry to an extent which maintains their characteristics as a peculiar community. As an example of their disinclination to leave their own town, Mr. Horne states the following circumstance: “Some years ago a factor, who had projected a manufactory in Brussels, engaged some five-and-twenty Willenhall men, whom he was at the expense of taking over. He gave them all work, and from hard-earned wages of from 9s. to 15s. a-week, these ‘practised hands’ found themselves able to earn 3l. a-week and upwards. But they were not satisfied, and began to feel uncomfortable; first one left, and returned home; then another; then one or two; till, in the course of a few weeks, every man had returned to Willenhall”—there to work harder and earn less.

It is just possible that the application of the factory system to lock-making may first become important by making the best locks cheaper than they can be made by the handicraft method; for there seems not much probability, at least for a great length of time to come, that any new system will be able to compete with Willenhall in the common locks—those of which more thousands are sold than there are tens of the better locks. In this, however, it would not do to predict rashly. Hand-loom weaving is cheap enough, unfortunately for those who practise it; but yet the factory system comes down as low as the lowest hand-loom weaving.

The editor of Hebert’s Encyclopædia, after noticing the facilities for opening most locks by copying the key, makes the following announcement: “It affords the editor of this work much satisfaction to state, that he has in his possession a lock, the key of which cannot be copied, a locksmith possessing no tools by which an exactly similar one can be made; the machine by which the original one was made is so arranged as to be deprived of the power of producing another like it. The lock is very simple, very strong, and can be very cheaply made. The cost of a complete machine to make them would be about 100l.; with that they might be manufactured at one-half the expense of any patent lock. The inventor is desirous to have the subject brought before the public under a patent; but want of time to devote himself to such an object at present obliges him to lay it aside.” The invention not being patented, the editor of course gave no diagram or engraving of the lock or machine; nor does there appear to have been a patent obtained during the sixteen or eighteen years which have elapsed since the above notice was published. There are, however, mechanical principles sufficiently well known to lead to a belief that such a machine is practicable; a ticket-printing or numbering machine will, in printing 100,000 tickets, produce such variations that no two impressions shall be identical; and a key-making machine might, after fashioning a particular part of each key, modify the arrangement of certain wheels and pinions so far as to produce a slightly different result when the next key is to be operated on.