J Grove and son

[Warren63]

Hi again. I have a J Grove and son plaque and on the bottom where it normally would say 'late with chubbs' it says 'bent steel safe'. I've never seen another one with this on in about 3 years of constantly watching all the Grove safe plates for sale on eBay. Does anyone know if Grove stopped using Chubb locks at this time or were they just advertising the fact of the arrival of their safes being upgraded with bent steel.? Thanks

[Tom Gordon]

"Late with Chubbs" means that Mr Grove used to work for Chubbs. They wouldnt have fitted Chubb locks on their safes.
Bent steel safe means that it wasnt made of sheets of steel just rivetted together, but bent to some degree or other (depending on the equipment that they had access to).

[Warren63]

Nice one . .that's cleared that up then . . thanks

[John345]

I have lost the key to my J Grove & Son safe and have been trying to pick the lock for weeks - can anyone help ?

[chubbbramah]

Bent steel safe means that it wasnt made of sheets of steel just rivetted together, but bent to some degree or other (depending on the equipment that they had access to).

This usually suggests bent bodies have recently been introduced, so indication of an earlier make. Once bent bodies were the norm, there would be no point in making this a point to advertise.
4-bent bodies arrived c1890
8-bent and 12-bent from c1910; 8-bent dropped out soon after WW1, c1920.

The op's plate is probably pre-c1920, or even pre-1914, as not so many safes were made during the war.
Also, incidentally, wrought iron was only gradually replaced by [mild] steel. The Bessemer converter had problems when first invented, and production increased slowly from 1854. Mild steel price and production beat wrought iron c1870, so late 19C it was still worth proclaiming to customers steel was being used. 'Steel' previously had connotations of toughness and hardness, as the term had generally meant the high carbon alloy which could be heat treated.

[safeman]

Both Joseph Groves and Samuel Phillips had premises in Birmingham and in 1865 jointly took out Patents No.621 and 2121 which related to the improvements of door to body attachment by projecting studs. Phillips frequently used Chubb till locks but I couldn't say if Groves did. Some connection all round then.

Regarding the use of wrought iron, 1/4" thick safe bodies could be 4 corner bent (Tann List 2a from the 1870's) but as wrought iron is made by piling, it has a grain and would only bend in one direction.

The earliest trials to bend thick steel plates by applying heat were not successful as it was not possible to maintain the thickness at the point of the bend.

Only the availability of high-class steels just before the turn of the Century
allowed the likes of Samuel Chatwood to use other than 1/2" fully 12 corner bent bodies.

[safeman]

Just to fill in a few extra details regarding the construction of safe bodies from the 1860's until the 1930's.

Firstly, for makers to make any claim of improved strength through the use of 12 corner bent bodies is totally misleading. Such body casings can be bent in this form from 1/16" to 1/2" thickness. It is generally accepted that anything under 1/4" can be ripped, peeled, and generally dismembered by the use of hand tools.

A minimum body thickness of 1/4" wrought iron or steel even in square cornered bodies is more effective than 1/8" fully bent body as seen above. Even Chatwood used 1/4" plates in his earliest safes such as the List 2 of the 1870's which had 1/4" wrought iron boiler plate with machine fitted dovetails on all edges on an angle iron framework.

Even in their lowest quality fire-resisting safes, makers such as Chubb, Milner, Hobbs Hart, Geo.Price and Tann used 1/4" plate. The main purpose was not for burglary resistance but to create the strongest structure possible to resist the effect of building collapse in a fire. In fact all such makers also increased the body plate thickness to 3/8" in the largest sizes to compensate for any possible resultant weakness due to size.

Collectively most of the other makers from Bates to Whitfield aimed their products at the cheapest end of the market with specifications to match. There were occasional exceptions of course when such companies were offered the chance to build much stronger thief-resisting models for special requirements and in such instances would put out the making of the doors and bodies to outside heavy engineering companies with the appropriate machinery such as brake presses and milling machines.