C Starkey & Son Rim Lock found in Brisbane, Australia

Rickyt28

Hi guys,

First poster here, sorry if this isn’t the correct topic area!

I recently bought a house in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is and old-ish timber framed house of around 60 years. Anyway, most of it is a good mismatch of bits and pieces, old and new but one thing I noticed is that the Master Bedroom door is a very old, very solid, wide timber door. It is the only one in the house, all the others are newer, cheap, 4 panel doors.

We have decided to get a painter in and during my prep for him to arrive I decided to take the door handle off this door. The lock and knobs were literally covered in around 10 layers of white paint, so much so that I hadn’t even noticed the lock in the 2 months I have lived here. I stripped it back with some paint stripper and found this little beauty hiding underneath..

I have yet to take the scutcheon plates off the door but I will be doing that tomorrow and UNFORTUNATELY there is no key or latch plate.

A bit of googling brought up some very brief history, stating that C.Starkey and Son Makers were around from approx. 1808 in Willenhall in England. But that is as much as I now know. Can anybody here give me anymore information regarding this lock and its makers? This could be a very common lock for all I know, but if it is rare then it would be nice to know, especially considering it is all the way over here in Oz!

Thanks guys.

Huw Eastwood

Hello Ricky, it’s not much but here’s a bit more courtesy of the Gazeteer of lock and key makers.

Might be worth a look on Grace’s guide, finding info on these smaller and less well known makers can often be a challenge as there were so many of them.
Your lock is a nice rim lock typical of many such makers.

Some searching salvaged antiques online and on foot around salvage yards should find a receiver/striker close enough to use for the frame, and any good locksmith capable of antique work will be able to hand make keys for it. Oldlock on here springs to mind and I’m sure would make a superb job using period blanks if you were to send it to him.