FIRE & THIEF-PROOF DEPOSITORIES AND LOCKS AND KEYS   

George Price wrote an extremely comprehensive work on the history and development of locks and safes during the time of the Great Exhibition in London. This was a period of significant advancements in the design of locks, safes, and vaults. His treatise provides a rich insight into the state of security technology of his day. When I was first introduced to this work by Horace Smith in England, I was fascinated by the chronicle of historical development of the forerunners to modern locking systems.

Mr. Price provided a timeless and valuable chronicle of events that ultimately resulted in the security principles and devices of the twentieth century. I hope that the availability of his work furthers an understanding of the locksmith profession, and an appreciation of the difficulties in bridging the forty centuries from the first Egyptian lock, to the modern highly technical world of security and its practitioners.