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Carriage Keys

Carriage key definition: A universal key used for locking and unlocking doors of railway

carriages. Additional terms: Railway key; Latch-key

There are a number of combination tools or tool sets which include a corkscrew and a

carriage key. The carriage keys can be found on folding bows, picnics, collapsing tools,

roundlets, and knives.

In discussing Sheffield cutlers and particularly the firms of Messrs. Rodgers and Messrs.

Brookes and Crookes in

British Manufacturing Industries

(E. Stanford 1876) George

Phillips Bevan wrote:

―

Having heard the expressed desire for a good knife that

contained in addition to all the ordinary blades, a

railway carriage key, a champagne

opener, a corkscrew

, a turnscrew, a button hook, and so forth, they have been engaged

for weeks in producing such a knife.

‖

This knife has some of the elements suggested in Bevan's work including the carriage

key and corkscrew. It was produced by Michael Hunter and Son of Sheffield and is

engraved with the initials W. M. and year 1878, two years after the publication of

Bevan's book.

Roundlet with carriage key