A little more ‘bent’ and Birmingham.
Wrought iron was the material used in most safe construction until steel became more commercially available at the turn of the century. Wrought iron (which tended to fracture when bent) was either rivetted or dovetailed to form the body of safes, sometimes reinforced by the addition of iron bands round the front and back. Incidentally, it was much more difficult to ‘rip’ the back off a wrought iron safe than a steel one of the same thickness as the more brittle iron plates would fragment rather than ‘peel’.
Of the 40 or so safe makers in the Birmingham area around this time, only about 5 survived the last war. They were Whitfields in Oxford Street, off Digbeth ; the Birmingham Safe Company, who for many years were in Heneage Street, John Grove of Ernest Street, W.E.Brain of Great Tindal Street, and Phillips Safe Company in Sherborne Street.
By the mid-50’s even they were gone. Whitfields became part of the MIlner Safe Company somewhere around 1946, the Birmingham Safe Company and Phillips became part of Samuel Withers which was eventually to be absorbed into the Stratford Safe Company in 1968 along with Safes Limited, J.Cartwright & Sons, Thomas Perry & Son, and E. Hipkins. Stratford, who badge engineered some of their lightest safes for export under the names Safes Limited and Withers, subsequently merged with John Tann.
