can you help ID this Hobbs & Co lever lock?

jweston33

Is there a way to date this latch/lever lock? It goes to a large antique conference table that has 10 drawers, 6 have locks. It says Hobbs & Co. / lever / machine made / London ? with a number of the lock that is unique for each drawer (#263, 264, etc). My research says that Hobbs registered his company as Hobbs and Co in 1852 & in 1855 it became Hobbs, Ashley and Company. S does that mean this lock was made from 1852-1855? or did they produce the same locks later? Thanks for any & all help.

Paul Prescott

The company reverted to the Hobbs & Co name later, so no the markings does not make it an early lock. It’s far more likely to be a later one IMO.

Scott Klemm

I can find no information that the company reverted back to the old name of Hobbs & Co. in later years. Hobbs & Co. was founded in 1852 and became Hobbs, Ashley & Co. in the 1860s. After Mr. Ashley died and Alfred Hobbs returned to America, the company became Hobbs, Hart & Co. The firm was acquired by Chubb in 1956.

Scott Klemm

CORRECTION. The company became Hobbs, Ashley & Co. in 1855. Mr. Ashley died in 1860 and Hobbs returned to the U.S.
A good source of information is Mike Fincher’s A Lock Collectors Guide to A.C. Hobbs. A Man of Genius (120 pages, illustrated).

Huw Eastwood

There is also a big clue in the ‘machine made’- I have a couple of these and they are indeed later- they are nice locks but show no signs of any hand finishing at all- machine cut parts and assembled without removal of tool marks from milling etc

safeman

Don’t know if this will help or confuse.

Richard Phillips

oldlock wrote
The company reverted to the Hobbs & Co name later, so no the markings does not make it an early lock. It’s far more likely to be a later one IMO.

As oldlock says, Hobbs insisted the company’s products be marked only Hobbs, despite the legal name of the company changing to include his partner Hart sometime after the departures of Ashley and Fortescue. Locks continued to be marked Hobbs up to the takeover by the Chubb group.
At a time when almost all other locks (except Bramah) were still handmade, Hobbs made a selling point of being machine-made, and locks continued to be so marked well into the 20C, as many other locks were still being handmade.

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