Lock-picking at the 1851 Great Exhibition
The inventor Joseph Bramah patented his first lock in 1784 and set up his lock-making company in London. Bramah locks became synonymous with high security; so confident was Joseph about his locks that he placed the ‘Challenge Lock’ in his shop window with this sign: “The artist who can make an instrument that will pick or open this lock will receive two hundred guineas the moment it is produced.”
No one believed that the lock could ever be picked, nor was anyone in Britain trying to improve on Bramah’s lock. The challenge held until the Great Exhibition of 1851 when US locksmith Alfred Charles Hobbs picked the lock. Although the feat took him 51 hours, it caused a sensation across the world and the race was on to improve lock security. It was the Yale cylinder lock patented by the USA’s Linus Yale in 1844 that solved the issue. This lock was based on the principle of the Egyptian pin tumbler device, and the early keys were round. Yale’s son improved the design in 1861 and 1865, and introduced a smaller flat Yale key with a serrated edge similar to the modern type. When the tumblers were raised by the correct key, the key could be turned in the lock, revolving a plug inside the lock cylinder that caused the bolt to be drawn back. It was possible to mass-produce Yale’s cylinder lock with machinery, so high-quality locks could now be manufactured quickly and cheaply.