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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Safes developed to meet distinct risks, especially theft and fire; a container built to resist one was not necessarily built to resist the other. Nineteenth-century accounts show how burglary drove public attention to safe-making, but they do not justify treating a safe as invulnerable—or turning historical descriptions of safe-breaking into instructions.
How safe-making developed in the 19th century
The Science Museum Group dates the founding of Chubb and Son to 1818, when Charles and Jeremiah Chubb established the company in Portsea. Its collection record says the firm made burglar-resistant safes from 1835 and opened safe works at Cowcross Street in London in 1837. Science Museum Group: Chubb and Son’s Lock and Safe Company Limited.
These dates mark one company’s history, not the invention of the safe itself. They do show that purpose-built resistance to burglary was an established part of Chubb’s business by the mid-1830s.
Why burglary brought safes into public view
In Protection from Fire and Thieves, published in 1875, safe manufacturer George Hayter Chubb said the Cornhill burglary of 1865 prompted public scrutiny of safe-making. He reported 28 patents for safes during the 64 years before 1865, followed by 122 in the next nine years. Those are figures Chubb gave in his own account, not a modern independent patent count. George Hayter Chubb, Protection from Fire and Thieves (1875).
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The book’s illustrated London edition is also cataloged by the Rijksmuseum Research Library. Its contents range across locks, keys, safe construction, fire protection, burglaries and safe-breaking, reflecting how closely the subject connected engineering with public concern about crime. Rijksmuseum Research Library catalog record.
Burglary resistance and fire resistance were different problems
Chubb’s book treats “Safes against Thieves” and “Safes against Fire” as separate subjects. That distinction matters: the ability to obstruct a burglar does not, by itself, establish that a safe can protect contents from heat or fire. Chubb also discussed strong-rooms and fire-resistant buildings, indicating that protection could depend on the surrounding structure as well as the safe.
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This is a historical framing from a manufacturer-author in 1875, not modern performance guidance. The sources here do not establish present-day safe ratings, standards or product performance.
What the 1920 examination of U.S. founding documents revealed
A National Archives account describes a committee’s examination of the safes holding the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. On May 5, 1920, the committee reported: “The safes are constructed of thin sheets of steel. They are not fireproof nor would they offer much obstruction to an evil-disposed person who wished to break into them.” U.S. National Archives, “The Declaration of Independence: A History”.
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The finding concerns those particular safes. It illustrates why a safe’s purpose or label cannot establish how well it withstands a particular threat; the committee assessed both fire protection and obstruction to intrusion.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What historical accounts say about safe-cracking
Chubb’s 1875 contents list includes methods such as wedging and drilling, showing that safe-breaking was discussed alongside safe design. The available text does not support a reliable technical account of how those methods were carried out. It is therefore more accurate to describe safe-cracking as part of the period’s security debate than to turn incomplete historical references into procedural instructions.
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