RARE COLLECTION OF KEYS

Southland Times, Issue 24820, 12 August 1942, Page 4

RARE COLLECTION OF KEYS

MR-JAMES STEWART’S GIFT TO MUSEUM A collection so rare that those able to do so claim it to be the only one of its kind in the world has been handed to the Southland Museum. It is a collection of keys gathered together by the late Mr James Stewart, of Invercargill, well known as the “sun-dial man. Several requests for the collection have been received from museums in New Zealand and from London, but it would have been contrary to the wishes of Mr Stewart to have allowed it to go out of Invercargill. The keys were mounted and named by Mr Stewart with instructions that they should be placed in the Southland museum when it was completed. His daughter, Mrs H. Curson, of Bowmont street, handed over the collection this week. _ Mounted on nine exhibition boards, the collection consists of all manner of keys dating from Biblical times, through Roman history and onwards through the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They are representations of the locksmith’s craft as carried out in almost every country of the world. It is now impossible to say when locks and keys were first -used, but none will question the antiquity of the pieces of this collection. There is abundant testimony to the use of locks and keys in the Bible. An interesting piece in the collection is a replica, made by Mr Stewart, of the chained Bible in Hereford Cathe-' dral. There is also a model showing the appliances used before 1830 for obtaining fire by flint, steel and tinder. A full description has been supplied with the collection; it will be available at the museum to those interested. OLD MUSICAL BOX

Several other valuable , gifts have been added to the collections. at the museum. An old-time musical box, purchased in Invercargill by Mr William Woodward in 1867, has been presented by his daughter, Mrs M. Hishon. It is an excellently preserved box, and it plays a series of 12 airs in the inimitable melody of the musical box. A pah’ of Chinese scales, carefully fitted into a wooden case and used to weigh gold dust, draws attention to the days when hundreds of Chinese worked the gold claims at Round Hill. This particular instrument was extensively used at Round Hill. It has been handed in by Mr H. Driver, of Colac. Other gifts include a collection of curios—Chinese fans, the handle of a stock whip carried by an Australian aboriginal, a Chinese basket, chipped carvings, a large collection of South Sea Islands shells and tappa work (given by Mrs Graham, Morell street), a collection of coins (Mr T. A. Franks) and a United States quarter piece recovered from a warship, which was sunk in Pearl Harbour by the Japanese (Mr E. Sorensen).