Three Centuries of Door Hardware
By: Sven Kraumanis - owner/operator Legacy Vintage Building Materials & Antiques
The entry door is the portal to a man’s castle. It defines the boundary between public and private. It is the front line in the battles between victims and perpetrators, haves and the have-nots, good guys and bad guys, the authorities and fugitives, incumbents and rebels, forces of light and darkness, emancipators and evildoers. Its décor distinguishes the occupant from “the Joneses”. As such, the history of the door’s latches and locks in many ways portrays society’s evolution- regardless of which side of the door you are on.
Effective locking of a door can be accomplished by a simple wooden bar across its inside dropped into open wall brackets. This warehouse-grade technique has been in use for centuries and is still in use today. Locking is a usually a modest aspect of door fastening, unless formidable power, as exhibited by yawning bank vaults, is part of the deterrent. Locking devices are by nature practical in their design responding only to the ingenuity or might of the guy on the outside of the door. Locking devices have enjoyed only three basic upgrades in as many centuries.
Latching is another story. If period architecture is a fashion show, hardware provides the accessories and door latches are the jewelry. Latches certainly have a practical purpose. However as we pursue the development of their functionality in the context of New World history we’ll linger in a century of whimsical anvil artistry, marvel for a century at artisans’ ingenuity, and languish for decades in a golden era before the fall.
1640 -1740 Handcrafted Latches and Anvil Artistry
Most of us ignore the significance of the blacksmith’s role in pioneer communities with twenty-first century smugness- if we’ve given it any thought at all. Some of us remain unmoved by his function even after our second or third tour of a smithy’s typical 18th century workshop- as interpreted by government-hired subcontracted historians at your local heavily tax-subsidized and volunteer-staffed pioneer village. These presentations are appropriately sanitized to suit an audience of cubs and brownies but barely hint at the esteem due to an essential pillar of early communities. The smithy’s trade in fact had a pivotal role in the making of New World history.
It was the blacksmith that chanced upon the unique properties of iron that led to the making of the compass with all its ensuing navigational possibilities. His fastenings bound together the ships that discovered new worlds and banded the staves of barrels that provided salted pork and fresh water enough for ocean crossings. His metallurgy developed alloys with hardness and malleability suitable for weapons, tools, agricultural implements, kitchen utensils, and builder’s hardware that enabled pilgrims to settle the New World. He often had to keep accounts and as a result had a rudimentary grasp of the three R’s. These trade requisites thus made him better educated than most common folks and the practical and useful results of his labour put him in higher regard amongst his rural neighbours than other professionals such as bankers and lawyers.
Early blacksmiths could not keep up with the demand for hardware in the rapidly expanding colonies. Roads and transportation systems didn’t exist to effectively distribute the wrought iron brought over as ballast in trade ships. Also, brass foundries beyond England’s shores were outlawed by her Acts of Trade designed to protect the industry in Birmingham. The undersupplied demand meant approximately 85 % of 17th and 18th century New World hardware had to be imported. It was predominately British but mixed in were with French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and German goods. Why does our tale begin in the 1640’s?
The first iron works in America was established in Saugus Massachusetts in 1646. Blacksmiths brought to the New World their time–tested styles and applied them to door hardware. The thumb latch was the solution of choice. The thumb latch consists of five parts: the handle, thumb piece, latch bar, guard and striker (or keeper). Occasionally a pendulum styled piece of metal was affixed above the latch bar which when swung down to impede the lifting of the latch bar would act as a lock. However the locking of the door was typically carried out by a rudimentary plate lock (see#1). This was essentially a slide bolt mounted on the inside of the door. Through a hole in the door leading to a patterned keyway into the case- unique to keys also made by the locksmith- a key holder can now, from outside the door, throw the bolt comprising the lock. This “warded” case was the first advancement for the slide bolt (see#2).
Figure 1.
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Figure 2. |
The artistry was in the latch. In an early 19th century treatise “English Metalwork”, William Twopenny (1797–1893) coined the names “Suffolk” and “Norfolk” to describe the two most common styles of thumb latches. The Suffolk has no back plate (see#3 {to be added soon} ). It appears in many patterns such as Tulip, Arrowhead, Ball and Spear, Swordfish, Ball Crescent and Spear, Pine tree, Tobacco Leaf, Bean, Heart, Cocks head, Lyre, fleur de lis and several geographically unique styles.
The Norfolk also appears in several designs, always distinguished by the presence of a back plate (see#4 {to be added soon} ). Blacksmiths artfully carried the latch design themes into other hardware produced at the time, notably hinges, hasps and wagon parts. Because of its scarcity this early hardware is extremely collectible. In May of 2005 a Pennsylvanian auction house sold James Sorber’s life long collection of early forged hardware and established benchmark prices for this aspect of pilgrim talent. Many dozens of thumb latches each sold in the $300 to $400 USD dollar range with unique pieces selling in the $1000’s and the most sought after thumb latch fetching $10,350 USD. Mass produced thumb latches remain in use today, available at your corner hardware store in the $5.00 range.
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