Curious about the lock

[zbigniev hamson]

I'd heard that police boxes could be used as temporary 'holding cells', but if the only lock they had was a regular Yale lock, how on Earth was this possible? With that sort of lock it's only possible to lock people OUT, not IN surely?

[purpleblancmange]

They weren't cells in the conventional sense, more like "Look you, sonny Jim - sit there until the paddy wagon arrives."  I gather it was just a convenient place to hold a suspect until help arrived, obviously the arresting officer would be close by and I doubt the door would have even been shut either.

[Rassilons Rod]

It also stopped people nicking the bobby's lunch and coffee

-Marc

[chriskingbees]

Irish gangsters?
Aren't they called the Murphia?

[Dematerialiser]

:-))))
I think that name is what might have got the coppers into trouble in the first place..!

[cardborduser]

actually
the yale lock was on the outside and worked the opposite
It was locked from the out side only.
There was no lock in the inside
~Aliza~

[Teletran]

I'm afraid I didn't quite follow that, could somone clarify?

[cardborduser]

The lock on policeboxes were on the outside and could be locked from the outside

[hb88banzai]

Well, at least as far as the Met boxes, the following may help to clarify the issue.

Despite specifying of the use of a "Yale latch" on the MacKenzie Trench plans, the existing evidence seems to suggest that most Police Boxes were actually fitted with ETAS rim latches mounted on the inside (in contrast, Glasgow boxes appear to have had mortise latches with inside handles) and had a standard round thumb turn and a deadlocking switch both operable from the inside (pretty sure it was the ETAS Model 129 or an equivalent form-factor, with a brass or bronze case) with the usual brass ETAS cylinder (which was essentially a standard Yale-type rim lock cylinder) exposed on the outside (taking a standard Yale Y1 pattern key). Most of the existing examples have shown the ETAS case retained on the inside, but replacement cylinders of different makes having been swapped in as needed when the originals wore out.

The actual logistics of how a prisoner would be detained inside a Police Box with this kind of setup remain in question if standard type rim latches were fitted (considering you could theoretically escape the box with just the turn of a knob). Perhaps handcuffs were used, attached to some hard-point on the inside. Perhaps the Officer stood guard outside.

However, an alternative possibility exists that I only recently found out about (thanks to info in the instruction sheet included in a still-in-the-box vintage lock I got off of eBay). I don't know what the situation was with ETAS locks, but it appears that Yale had a type of rim latch that could be deadbolted from the outside using the key, which in this case not only locked the latch so that it couldn't be jimmied open from the outside, but also disabled BOTH the inside knob and deadbolt lever so that it could not be unlocked or opened from the inside at all until the key was used again from the outside.

If ETAS had a similar model, then this might solve the mystery. It would also explain the curious actions of a Police Woman seeming to lock up a Met Box with her key after exiting and closing the door despite the lock being a self-latching type. A clip of this (probably originally from a Public Service Film) can be seen in the "Bigger Inside Than Out" Police Box history aired by the BBC back in 1993. You can see the whole short documentary on Youtube - one copy here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3avd8xwzzCk

The scene in question is around the 2:53 mark. You clearly see her exit the Police Box, then use the key and jiggle the handle to ensure it is locked before leaving. A rim latch (as it obviously is from the inside door details shown in this clip - the bolt being extended and beveled with the door open) usually latches automatically when the door is closed, so just a quick jiggle of the handle would be enough to check if it was latched. No need for a key unless you had another reason, so perhaps.

Here is a still from that vid showing the inside lock (looks to be an ETAS based on the very sharp corners of the case and prominent lever-type deadlock lever/snib)...



And then of her using the key after it is already closed (and should be latched)...

[DoctorWho8]

Fascinating.  And this box has the sign door handle on the left side.  So maybe the Troughton era had it right for a while when door handles were added to the TARDIS prop before the door sign changed.  Same with the McGann prop.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[hb88banzai]

Fascinating.  And this box has the sign door handle on the left side.  So maybe the Troughton era had it right for a while when door handles were added to the TARDIS prop before the door sign changed.  Same with the McGann prop.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

It's really quite humorous to recall the huge uproar at the time regarding the McGann prop's phone door, when just looking back a few decades would have shown it to have had plenty of precedence, both on TARDIS's and Police Boxes.

Seems to me that based on the frequency that they appear in photographs, a third or more of the original boxes may have had the phone door handles on the left and hinges on the right. In fact, in some ways it's more logical to have it that way, at least for right-handers.

While I feel it is more esthetically pleasing to have the handle on the right (a symmetry thing, having both the handles towards the center of the box), if you think about it, a right-handed person would normally pick up a phone with their left hand, so it would be more ergonomic for a person to open the phone door that has the handle on the left with their right hand leaving their left hand free and clear to immediately reach in and pick up the phone's handset.

Of course, for the left-handed minority, the opposite configuration would be more convenient - with the phone door handle on the right the way we are most familiar with.

So, it seems we can also divide the Met Police Boxes into "right-handed" and "left-handed" models.