VICTORIAN BIRMINGHAM-MADE SAFE FOUND IN CANAL
A VICTORIAN safe made in Birmingham in 1873 has been hauled from a Northern canal.
Sadly there ws not much in it, but magnet fisher Sophie Doyle said she did find one item.
Ms Doyle, 26, discovered the old Birmingham artefact in a Greater Manchester canal.
She said: “The safe was very rusty after being submerged for so many years. It had been broken into through the back.
“It was extremely heavy and required a combined pulling force of over two tonnes with magnets and grappling hooks, all done by hand without aid of a winch.”
The safe’s intricate pattern and family name caught her attention: “It had a brass plaque on the front which read: Phillips & Son Manufacturers Birmingham, improved patent, fire resisting.
“We managed to remove the historic brass plaque before our scrapper arrived. We discover and normally preserve historic items found under water but the safe was irreparable so we had a recycle it.”
But the group did find an old coin-like gaming token inside.
Phillips & Son were renowned safe manufacturers in Birmingham, famous for its “Bulldog safes”.
A newspaper advert from 1913 said the safe’s bolt “grips like a vice and is all round the safe”.
Another advert said the company’s safes were “guaranteed to be made of the finest possible materials”.
Ms Doyle’s discoveries in Britain’s waterways have earned her a keen fanbase.
Her list of finds reads like an inventory from the Italian Job, including everything from a gunpowder-filled hand grenade to a banknote-counting machine.
She took up the hobby in 2020, and went on to set up her social media page Magnetic Pull.
Her gear includes powerful magnets attached to ropes and grappling hooks.
She explained: “Magnetic Pull is a personal blog where I post videos and photographs of items discovered underwater. I have formed a team and we go out every weekend, Saturday and Sunday to clean up the UK’s waterways to help the environment.
“I research items I find. My oldest find has to be a gunpowder filled hand grenade which I have traced to a war in the 1650s. It is believed that I have recovered a 2000 year old Anvil, so I will be taking that to a museum for further research.”