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The box has a Chubb lock with the serial # 1267700. This indicates that the lock was made 1882 - 1898 Glengall Road, London  (serial #899501 to 1375300).

Chubb locks are rightly considered one of the most secure.  It would have been a natural upgrade for the lock of a box containing valuable traveling accessories. 

The name of Chubb is famous in the lock world for the invention of the detector lock and for the production of high quality lever locks of outstanding security during a period of 140 years. The detector lock,  was patented in 1818 by Jeremiah Chubb of Portsmouth, England, who gained the reward offered by the Government for a lock which could not be opened by any but its own key. 

It is recorded that, after the appearance of this detector lock, a convict on board one of the prison ships at Portsmouth Dockyard, who was by profession a lockmaker, and had been employed in London in making and repairing locks, asserted that he had picked with ease some of the best locks, and that he could pick Chubb's lock with equal facility. 

One of these was given to the convict together with all the tools which he stated to be necessary, as well as blank keys fitted to the drill pin of the lock and a lock made on exactly the same principle, so that he might make himself master of the construction. Promises of a reward of £100 from Mr Chubb, and a free pardon by the Government were made to him in the event of his success. After trying for two or three months to pick the lock, during which time he repeated overlifted the detector, which was as often undetected or readjusted for his subsequent attempts, he gave up, saying that 

Chubb's were the most secure locks he had ever met with, and that it was impossible for any man to pick or to open them with false instruments. Improvements in the lock were subsequently made under various patents by Jeremiah Chubb and his brother Charles.

See: www.chubblocks.co.uk/historyoflocks.html 

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