Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/304

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Christy
296
Chubb

carried out at his expense in the Vezere Valley; these notices appeared in the 'Comptes Rendus,' 29 Feb. 1864, and the 'Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London,' 21 June 1864. They referred chiefly to the reindeer period, as the time of the cavemen in southern France now came to be styled. He began preparations for an exhaustive book which was to describe all that he and M. Lartet had been able to ascertain about these early savage tribes. A large number of drawings from the implements and bones were made under his direction, and he had written descriptions of some of them to accompany the plates, together with a general notice of the relationship of these old tools to those in use by existing races of savages. This great work, which unfortunately he did not live to complete, was entitled 'Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ, being contributions to the Archæology and Paleontology of Perigord and the adjacent provinces of Southern France.' It was issued in parts, and completed at the expense of Christy's executors, first by M. Lartet, and after his death in 1870 by Professor Rupert-Jones. It is a large quarto volume, containing three maps, eighty-seven plates, one hundred and thirty-two woodcuts, and nearly five hundred pages of letterpress, and is everywhere recognised as a principal work of reference on pre-historic man.

In April 1865 Christy left England with a small party of geologists to examine some caves which had recently been discovered in Belgium, near Dinant. While at work he caught a severe cold. A subsequent journey with M. and Mme. Lartet to La Palisse brought on inflammation of the lungs, of which he died on 4 May 1865.

Christy was a warm philanthropist. In the Irish famine of 1847 he was especially active, but throughout his life his benefactions were large and continuous. By his will he bequeathed his magnificent collections illustrating the history of early man, together with the equally large series of articles representing the habits of modern savages, to the nation. He also left a sum of money to be applied to their due care and public exhibition. As there was then no spare room at the British Museum, the trustees secured the suite of rooms at 118 Victoria Street, Westminster — in which Christy himself had lived — and here the collection was exhibited, under the care of Mr. A. W. Franks, until 1884. In that year the removal of the natural history department to South Kensington made room for the collection at the British Museum. The work of Christy's life has been well summed up as establishing the close resemblance between the last races of primitive man and the savage life of our own time, and in showing that humanity has in its incipient stage exhibited a singular harmony of expression, not only in its habits and wants, but in the fashioning and ornamentation of its weapons and utensils, quite irrespective of zone and climate.'

[Geological Magazine, ii. 286; Quart. Journ. Geological Society, xxii. pres. address, p. xxx; Guide to the Christy Collection.]

W. J. H.


CHRYSTAL, THOMAS. [See Crystall.]

CHUBB, CHARLES (d. 1846), locksmith, started in business at Winchester in the hardware trade, moved thence to Portsea, and afterwards came to London, where he founded the firm of Chubb & Sons, formerly of St. Paul's Churchyard, but now of Queen Victoria Street, E.C. He was the first patentee of improvements in the well-known form of 'detector' locks, originally patented by his brother, Jeremiah Chubb of Portsea, 3 Feb. 1818. Charles Chubb patented further imnrovements in these locks in 1824, 1828, and 1833, and also took out patents for fire and burglar proof safes. He aied at his residence, Bamsburv Road, Islington, 16 May 1845 (see Oent. ^Moff. new ser. 26, 104, 660).

Chubb, John (1816-1872), his son and successor, and patentee of various improvements in Chubb's locks and safes, was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, in 1846, and in 1851 read before that body a valuable paper on locks and keys, which also contained lists of all British patents relating thereto, and all communications to the Society of Arts (of which he was a member) on the subject up to that date (Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, London, vol. ix.) For this he was awarded the Telford silver medal of the institution (ib. vol. xiii.) After working up the business so that it attained the reputation it now possesses, John Chubb died at his residence, Brixton Rise, on 30 Oct. 1872, in his fifty-seventh year (Times, 2 Nov. 1872). At first only two or three men were employed at Portsea in lockmaking, and after Charles Chubb removed to London about a dozen more were so employed down to 1830, when a factory was opened at Wolverhampton which gradually increased until it gave work to two hundred hands. He also started a safe factory in London, where one hundred and fifty hands were subsequently employed in the manufacture of fire and burglar-resisting safes. The two factories are now concentrated in the south of London, in a specially constructed building, fitted with all modern improvements in steam machinery, and ca-