Tann ten Lever Locks 6.5 gauge

[safeman]

Hello Gary. WHS was William Henry Stanton whose place I took when he retired. Probably the foremost Lock Expert in this and other countries. He co-operated with Kromer and Ingersoll with Patents in both companies plus personally for the 3G110 Chubb lock. I'll try and add some detail.

I was first introduced to Bill Stanton in the Tann Billericay factory around the late 1960's. He had not long joined the company from Chubb at Wolverhampton where he had been working in lock and safe design. Before joining Chubb he had been working as a safe mechanic in Coventry opening and repairing safes of all descriptions, a background identical to my own which helped us form an immediate and lasting friendship.

When Bill joined Tanns in 1965, his first project was already awaiting him - an order for 7000 locks for the Ministry of Works. He trained up 4 girls and worked with them for the first month sorting out the problem locks and in doing so, proved to Tann (and the male locksmiths) that female labour could make locks, reaching a figure of 300 a week towards the end of the order.

When a second order followed, the work was transferred to the Westbury factory (Tann-Synchronome) where he trained a local team which didn’t go particularly well but they finally got the initial batches through the rigid Ministry inspection. By this time, he was only making monthly visits to Westbury on other projects and one day decided to take one of the locks to pieces. Suffice to say that shortcuts had been taken resulting in the reading of the riot act and rectification of the problem. In a recent re-telling of this incident his comment was "never again would it happen - and so I became a really awkward sod, as you know :))" So now we all know how it started!

Although I was to work alongside Bill as part of the R&D team at Borehamwood, I was still operating out of Tann Scotland, but I still managed to join the team after our test work for the statutory Indian or Italian meal. When I was transferred to Borehamwood in 1986, Bill had already taken retirement but of course we were then in close enough proximity to partake of the delights of Diomedes Cypriot establishment in St.Albans.

In setting up the new safe museum I more or less took on the role of Tann historian, but in fact there was not much archival material available. I was to learn from Bill that when John Tanns were acquired by the Stratford Equipment Company it was decided to close Tann's City offices in Newgate Street and that there was no point in keeping all these old records, display material, etc. (LJT reputedly said "... this company is for the future, not the past, junk it!") By good fortune Bill managed to prevent some of the material from being destroyed and it is only now, on his passing that it is coming to light.

Probably the most important archive was what was known as the Finishing Books or sometimes the Numbers Books. These dated back as far as 1863 and comprised entries for every piece of safe and door equipment made. They were kept at the factories, Hackney, Old Ford, Billericay, and lastly Borehamwood. In total there were 154 books. When Tann, and then Tann Rosengrens were absorbed by the Gunnebo Group who had already acquired Chubb, it was decided that these books should all be transferred to Chubb's Wolverhampton premises from where they operated their own safe identification system for insurers, and where it is assumed, they would then extend this service for Tann products. Mysteriously they have disappeared and Chubbs cannot locate them.

But by the best of good fortune Bill had made a most detailed study of the books - all 154 of them. When told of the disappearance his reply was "Maker's books, how I looked after them !" "I read every flaming page of those books making note of who made what, when, for whom, with totals, start years of models .... " All this he had done in his own time by taking a small number of the books home each night for over a year! All this without knowing that one day his meticulous notes would be all that is left of these invaluable records and possibly even of more value than having the actual books.

And history does repeat itself. Recently he wrote " after I left (Tann) I was told that during a clean up someone said 'Bills's old stuff - junk it" .
The books stayed because they were still in use for identification work but old publicity material and catalogues all went.

I haven’t touched on Bill's lock background mainly because I'm a safeman, not a lockman. I had been told that his name was mentioned on the Patent for the Chubb 3G110 lock. I was well aware of the magnitude of his lock collection having had to manipulate the stairs in his house which was lined with old ammunition boxes all laden with locks.

When I look through my folder of emails to and from BIll, it seems that most of them have nothing to do with safes or locks, but are more inclined towards some of my computer problems, or, in the earlier pre PC days, Indian food recipes. I can even date my first computer with Bill's email - " heard you got a computer beastie ... Wow." That was December 2002.

More to follow.