Episode 1 of 3
1817 Portsmouth Dockyard Burglary
- When
- 1817
- Where
- Portsmouth Dockyard
A burglary at Portsmouth Dockyard using false keys prompted a government competition for a secure lock, motivating Jeremiah Chubb's invention.
In 1817, a burglary occurred at Portsmouth Dockyard using false keys. This incident led Her Majesty's Government to announce a competition to produce a lock that could be opened only with its own unique key, setting the stage for Jeremiah Chubb's response.
Sources
- Chubb detector lock Wikipedia, revision of 2025-07-04
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.