Get Cracking

C.A. Asbrey

In the past, just as today, the public have had a view of the hierarchy of criminals, based on their skills, as well as their income. Right at the top are those making millions from organised crime, especially those who do not use violence in the commission of their crimes. When they steal from the rich they can even be positively popular. Just look at the crimes of people like Count Redmond O'Hanlon 17th century Ireland, who stole from the British rich, and really did give it to the poor, or Jack Sheppard, the 18th century thief whose ability to escape justice captured the imagination of his adoring public. Criminals with the intelligence to plan, circumvent stringent security, and humanity to avoid violence, were always the people who attracted the hearts of the public; especially poor people who would loved to have had the courage to emulate them. The emergence of the skilled, technically proficient burglar as among the principal figures of fear in the ‘criminal class was a feature of the 19th century. Prior to this, the skills lay in litheness of the 'snakesman', the small boy able to squeeze through tiny holes and let the rest of the gang in.

In the past, just as today, the public have had a view of the hierarchy of criminals, based on their skills, as well as their income. Right at the top are those making millions from organised crime, especially those who do not use violence in the commission of their crimes. When they steal from the rich they can even be positively popular. Just look at the crimes of people like Count Redmond O'Hanlon 17th century Ireland, who stole from the British rich and really did give it to the poor, or Jack Sheppard, the 18th century thief whose ability to escape justice captured the imagination of his adoring public. Criminals with the intelligence to plan, circumvent stringent security, and humanity to avoid violence, were always the people who attracted the hearts of the public; especially poor people who would loved to have had the courage to emulate them. The emergence of the skilled, technically proficient burglar as among the principal figures of fear in the ‘criminal class was a feature of the 19th century. Prior to this, the skills lay in litheness of the 'snakesman', the small boy able to squeeze through tiny holes and let the rest of the gang in.

Safecracking entered the vocabulary in the 1930s, but it's a considerably older skill set than than that date. As soon as anyone invented a way to secure their valuables, someone else devised a way to break in and take them. Even the ancient graves of the great and good weren't safe. Gangs of grave robbers have been known to force entry and take anything they could carry, despite the threat of guards, supernatural beings, and curses. By the 19th century locks and security were big business.

 Security got itself into the arms race we know today. Every time a lock was invented, someone found a way to crack it, and the competing companies found it good for business if they could get someone to break into their biggest rivals' safes in front of an audience. By the middle of the 19th century these exhibitions gathered enormous crowds, and the men who could breach the security of a safe could make a decent, and honest living. One of the most famous was Alfred Charles Hobbs. He was not a criminal. He was one of the founders of the locksmith company Hobbs Hart & Co. Ltd. and an expert on every aspect of locks and their construction. In 1851 he was sent to the Great Exhibition in London to represent the American company, Day & Newell. The Great Exhibition, also known as The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, was a kind of Victorian World's Fair, where companies from all over the world brought products and inventions to show off to the biggest market to date

Hobbs was there to sell the new Parataupic Lock, but true to the showmanship which marked out successful salesmen of the day, he found that the best way to sell was to show how easily the rival lock, made by the Bramah Company, could be picked. Bramah accepted his challenge, and gave Hobbs a sample lock, a set of blank keys and thirty days, to pick the lock. On July 22nd, 1851, people watched the unassuming American take off his jacket “To witness an attempt to open a lock throwing three bolts, and having six tumblers, affixed to the iron door of a strong room.” With only a day to prepare, Hobbs had proceeded to humiliate the Bramah Company by publicly opening the lock in only seven minutes, with a key he had made, in front of judges and spectators.

The company was beyond upset, claiming this was just a fluke, but Hobbs demonstrated that the key he had made could be used to open, and lock, the vault. In other words, it was easy to make a true key.

Alfred Charles Hobbs 

To understand how upsetting this was at the time, it has to be made clear that up until that point, the Bramah lock was considered impenetrable. This display had the potential to ruin the company entirely, and served to underscore the weaknesses in the English locks. "The lock controversy continues a subject of great interest at the Crystal Palace, and, indeed, is now become of general importance. We believed before the Exhibition opened that we had the best locks in the world, and among us Bramah and Chubb were reckoned quite as impregnable as Gibraltar— more so, indeed, for the key to the Mediterranean was taken by us, but none among us could penetrate into the locks and shoot the bolts of these masters. The mechanical spirit, however, is never at rest, and if it is lulled into a false state of listlessness in one branch of industry, and in one part of the world, elsewhere it springs up suddenly to admonish and reproach us with our supineness. Our descendents on the other side of the water are every now and then administering to the mother country a wholesome filial lesson upon this very text, and recently they have been "rubbing us up" with a severity which perhaps we merited for sneering at their shortcomings in the Exhibition."


What Hobbs had done was expose the weaknesses of the British Empire, the arrogance of the illusion of superiority, and the cocky challenge of the new up and coming power. It not only hurt, it shocked. Especially as the Great Exhibition was the brainchild of Queen Victoria's husband as a means of promoting Great Britain following the very successful exposition in France in 1844. The exhibition of 1851 was a showcase for Britain to make it "clear to the world its role as industrial leader" The Bankers’ Magazine wrote that “the result of the experiment has simply shown that, under a combination of the most favourable circumstances, and such as practically could never exist, Mr. Hobbs has opened the lock.” The condescending tone still rings with hurt to this day.

The lock had been invented by Chubb and was designed to seize up should anyone try to pick it. At that point, even the real key couldn't unlock it, and the owner needed to get a 'regulating key' to re-set the lock back to the original settings. The Detector had been totally discredited. They should have known better, as even a most cursory investigation would have told them that Hobbs had a history of stunts like this.

For years Hobbs had toured America with a "equipped with a lock and suspicious implements". He visited banks and broke into their vaults before the concerned eyes of worried owners and managers, at the same time selling them his vastly superior locks and vaults.

Britain’s image of lock-making supremacy, as inviolable as the locks themselves, was called into question. There was even a commonly-used idiom about something being "as safe as the Bank of England." Hobbs had proven that was no longer true. The Bank of England itself removed Chubb’s locks and replaced them with Day and Newell locks. American locks now made the Bank of England safe.

The Great Exhibition suddenly had the public devouring obscure details of their innermost workings—tumblers, sliders, false notches—something nobody had paid the least attention to up until that point. As historian Jeffrey Auerbach writes, “the Great Exhibition revealed, for the astute observer, signs of underlying weaknesses, the beginning of the erosion of Britain’s economic preeminence upon which its military and imperial strength rested.”

1851 was a time of upheaval in British society. The Exhibition brought tourists from all over the world in a way the country had never previously experienced. It was also the year when the population of the towns finally outweighed the population of the people in rural areas. That changed society in many ways, not all of them good. Henry Mayhew wrote in London Labour and the London Poor, "we increase in poverty and crime as we increase in wealth.” It hadn't occurred to them that most people in the country were not sharing that wealth and were worse off than ever before. This separating of rich and poor, along with the creation of a new middle class resulted in a new obsession relating to security. The old saying, 'An Englishman's home is his castle' was especially true in the 19th century. One German journalist visiting London described a “mania for fortification.” The rise in perceived, or actual, insecurity was accompanied by a proliferation of lock patents. As The historian David L Smith notes, “from the beginning of the 19th century until 1851, the government issued some 70 patents for locks. By 1865 that number had exceeded 120; and within the next 55 years it climbed to over 3,000.”

The Times wrote, “and it seems cruel at this time of day, when men have been taught to look at their bunches of keys and at their drawers and safes with something like confidence, to scatter that feeling to the winds.”

Hobbs did a lot more than pick a lock that day at the Great Exhibition. He pricked the bubble of arrogant inviolability England had regarding its place in the world. He made every rich man in the Empire look at his wealth and wonder exactly how safe it was.

Innocent Bystander EXCERPT

A vacant-looking man with prominent yellow teeth walked into her field of vision, striding beyond the blinding sun and dragged her roughly from the horse. She had expected to be searched and had ruthlessly bound her body with bandages to try to flatten and conceal her breasts, but the man merely patted down her sides before turning his attentions to her jacket. He pulled out the pistol which had been loosely placed in her pocket and slapped his way down her legs. She was instantly glad she had foregone the Derringer she usually wore at her ankle. A concealed weapon was too risky.

“He’s clean.”

“Well, boy. It seems like you’re gonna get your wish, but if you’ve been messin’ with us and you ain’t Quinn’s kin, you’re gonna regret it. He don’t like to be messed with.”

Abigail felt her arms grabbed as she was roughly turned around and her carefully dirtied hands were bound behind her back, the rope biting deeply into her skin as it was pulled tight. They must have seen her wince as it provoked a chorus of laughter which rang in her ears.

“Looks like this life’s a bit too rough for you, sonny.”

 A thick, smelly bag was thrust over her head, obliterating the world, before she was lifted back onto her little colt and she felt herself led off to face the rest of the gang.