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Alfred Charles Hobbs (October 7, 1812 – November 6, 1891) was an American locksmith. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts,〔Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Science〕 in 1812; his father was a carpenter. He married Charlotte F. Nye (1815-?) of Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1835 and had four children: Charlotte Hobbs, Alfred J. Hobbs (1843-?), Mary H. Hobbs, and Arthur Hobbs. Both of his parents were born in England.〔1880 US Census; Bridgeport, Connecticut〕 Hobbs went to London as a representative of the New York company of Day & Newell, which was exhibiting at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Hobbs had brought with him his boss Robert Newell's Parautoptic lock, designed to compete with, and surpass, the locks available at the time in Britain. He was the first one to pick Bramah's lock and the Chubb detector lock at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and forced the lock manufacturers to improve their designs.
In 1854 he was awarded a Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers for his paper 'On the Principles and Construction of Locks'. Hobbs became one of the founders of the lock making firm of Hobbs Hart & Co. Ltd. The company started in 1851 and was formally registered as Hobbs and Co. in 1852. But by 1855 it had become Hobbs, Ashley and Company. The name then changed to Hobbs, Ashley and Fortescue, with an address at 97 Cheapside in London. Then for the next ninety years the address was 76 Cheapside in London.〔Evans, Jim. ("A Gazetteer of Lock and Key Makers" )〕 In 1860 Hobbs returned to America and lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and went on to hold a dozen patents for firearm ammunition manufacturing. In 1880 he listed himself as a "Superintendent Of Cartridge Factory". ==Publications== * Locks and Safes: The Construction of Locks. Published by Virtue & Co., London, 1853 (revised 1868) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alfred Charles Hobbs」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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