Inside the Davenport Rim Lock

The Period Ironmonger is taking this opportunity to show you the working mechanism of a basic Victorian Rim Lock. We have taken the back off one of our Davenport Rim Locks which is the exact copy of a 19th century lock and labeled some of the key parts of the internal mechanism.

A brief history: Wolverhampton, Willenhall and Wednesfield, all in the Black Country, were know to be the main lock making areas in Great Britain from as early as the mid eighteenth century. In 1770 these three small towns  had approximately 280 lock manufacturers, this number has now decreased significantly and as we moved from the 20th to 21st century the number was around 20. Names like Carpenter & Tildesley, Yale, Union, Legge, H & T Vaughan, Josiah Parkes and Henry Squire (to name a few) were all successful manufacturers in these areas sadly today all but a few remain.

The single lever lock was one of the first to be mass produced in England and our Davenport Rim Lock, Cromwell, Victorian and Regency Rim Latches are all made from copies of these earlier locks and the internal mechanisms are replicas of the originals.