Back in the early 1800 hundreds some famous names that are still synonymous with British security are still around some 150+ years later.
Obviously one that springs to our mind is Jeremiah Chubb the inventor of the detector lock. Not made these days but its principle of security at its time was un surpassed. There was a competition around at the time by the government of the day to reward any lock manufacture £100 if there lock could not be picked.
This competition which Chubb won spring bolted his career and he moved from Portsmouth to Willienhall where all the famous lock manufactures were at the time. He set up his business with a few relatives and started selling and fine tuning his designs.
Another great lock manufacture around the same time that was making waves in the field was Jospeh Bramah and still to this day you can buy locks from The Bramah Lock company.
For thirty + years Chubs detector lock was un-pickable, around the time of The Great Exhibition another prominent Master Locksmith from America working and exhibiting by the name of Alfred Hobbs, managed to manipulate Chubb’s Detector lock and to add insult to injury did the same to Jospeh Bramah’s lock as well.
Alas not very happy about it but with over 30 years under their belt making their locks, the names stuck as providing incredibly secure locks.
Chubb’s name has been promoted over the years, we have Chubb Safes, Chubb Alarms, Chubb Fire etc but over the last couple of years Assa Abloy bought Chubb Locks in the UK along with Yale and Union.
There seemed to be some confusion and the story goes that the name Chubb Locks is owned by a company in America and that if Assa Abloy wanted to use the name Chubb Locks then they would have to pay for it. I am not sure if this is the truth but this is what everyone in the industry imply as being accurate. Obviously Assa and the other Company could not come to an arrangement and therefore, Chubb Locks is no more in the UK.
Assa Abloy took the unusual step of changing the name from Chubb to Union, I understand they could use the work Chubb but not Chubb Locks. So now the infamous 3K74 and 3G114 sash locks are still made in exactly the same way but have been rebranded with the term ‘Chubb at Heart’ Implying of course that the lock is still in fact a Chubb Lock.
We all know times move on and things change, Banham, Bramah, Yale, Gibbons etc are all famous names in the lock industry and are still making locks these days, perhaps now in China but at least the names are still with us. Part of the Victorian Industrial Revolution, but a sad time nether the less about Jeremiah Chubb, I am sure he would not have been happy watching the directors of the relevant boards fighting over his name.
So Good Bye Chubb Locks, hope to see you back around soon
--------------------------------------------------------------
written by
Darrel Walters
Head of the tech department
for LocksOnline
TRUST Security - Trust LocksOnline
various resources from wiki and web
