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Apparently Chatwood made some "crude" laminated round doors in the early 1900's- long before their famous 35 ton 'Midland Bank' door of the late 1920s.
The doors were apparently made at Bolton works and one installed in Cox & Co, pre Cox & Kings Bank, London. Does anyone know if any archive pictures or anything survives of these important early round doors?
Still hoping for anything that members might be able to add on these Chatwood's. Any British round bank doors from the early 1900's pre-dating the big boom of the twenties and thirties would be of significant historical importance.
This is possibly what you already have Huw,Quote:
Originally Posted by Huw Eastwood
Attachment 20646
Thanks for that safeman, haven't seen that paper before but I reckon its probably the original source of what I'd previously read as the wording is very much the same.
The only Chatwood doors I have images for are the HSBC/Midland bank (now The Ned hotel), plus this one emergency door at an unknown location:
Attachment 20648
The boltwork strongly resembles Benjamin Tripp's design, used mostly by Herring Hall Marvin here in the US but also occasionally by Diebold and perhaps others. I've wondered if Chatwood properly licensed Tripp's design (patented in the US in 1906, http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00816049).
Briefly dipping back into this has reminded me how big a lottery it was.
Both the name reference to Cox & King's Bank and the Waterloo Place address proved a bit of a diversion. The company was Cox & Co for a very long time until after the Henry King takeover, not becoming Cox & Kings until 1923.
From their early Cox & Co days (when he operated from his house) they had 2 addresses (long before the Chatwood door connection here), with Charing Cross being the main office from 1888 until after the Lloyds Bank takeover in 1923, when they moved to 6 Pall Mall. From what I've trawled back up Waterloo Place doesn't really seem to show up with any substance until Lloyd's recent move in 1991.
Incidentally Cox & Kings has an impressive history in its own right, for anyone who might be interested, the Duke of Wellington and Winston Churchill being famous clients.
As "crude" as any such early laminated round door might have been, it would still be great to uncover anything more about it.
Turned out it was 6 Waterloo Place, the confusion being it was the actual Pall Mall address, normally referred to as 6 Pall Mall, but the building was actually on the corner of the two.
Not surprisingly there's nothing Chatwood left, had countless modifications over the years and now yet another five star hotel.