150 Years of Fighting Crime
| Published date | 01 April 1968 |
| Date | 01 April 1968 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6804100404 |
| Subject Matter | Police Journal Correspondent |
POLICE
JOURNAL
CORRESPONDENT
150
YEARS
OF FIGHTING
(;RIME
Astipendiary magistrate has recently criticized the banks' new
practice of printing their customers' names on their cheques, claim-
ing that it made fraud much easier. Whether or not this particular
criticism is justified, it forms part of a current trend to look at
social and commercial habits from the point of view of the aid
they give the criminal. This revival of an old attitude can only
be welcome to the police officer who (despite the baseless claims
made to bolster up the ill-judged restriction on recruiting) needs
all the help he can get and will be glad of any increase in the
public's willingness to take care of its property. There is much
to be done in this field, as comparison with other advanced
nations shows. People on the Continent, for example, to a far
higher degree than in this country place their valuables in safe-
deposit boxes rather than leave them exposed to attack in their
own
homes-the
corollary is of oourse that'safe-deposit boxes are
more widely and more easily available than over most of this
country. Again, in America a much higher proportion of safes in
private use have combination locks, giving a higher degree of
security than the key safes more prevalent here.
There is thus much to be done in this country by way of mak-
ing property secure against theft;
but
nevertheless the police would
be the first to acknowledge the contribution made by the security
industry to the fight against crime. These thoughts are indeed in-
spired by a milestone in the history of a firm whose name has for
many years been almost synonymous with security - Chubb and
Son's Lock and Safe Co., Ltd. The firm recently marked its 150th
anniversary by an exhibition at the Royal Society of Arts and the
publication of a selection by Noel Currer-Briggs from its scrap-
books. There is also a collection of essays under the title Security:
Attitudes and Techniques for Management. published by Hutchin-
son (to be reviewed in a later issue of
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL).
The origin of the firm was the invention in 1818, of Chubb's
famous Detector lock. This was not, of course, the first security
lock. Many people have heard of Bramah's lock, and his patent
dates from the late 18th century, as does that taken out by
Robert Barron, whom the trade recognizes as the father of the
modern security lock.
The
improvement effected by the Chubb
lock, the detector, was a double-locking device which was in-
evitably brought into play by any attempt to pick the lock and
which both frustrated the attempt and made it known to the owner
April
1968 161
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