History Behind the Modern Metal Locker

As you browse our site you may notice our delightful range of industrial-style lockers. This range comes in an abundance of different colours and each item can be used as a side table, storage cabinet, small cupboard etc. and is ideal for contemporary interiors, kids' rooms and offices. Have you ever wondered where lockers originated? We here at La Maison Chic are certain that you will be shocked to find out.

Bring yourself back to Greece in 450 BC, where the Ancient Greeks prided themselves on their athletic abilities and sought to provide the best facilities for their athletes. It is from this need to provide a safe storage area which arguably birthed the original idea for lockers and locker rooms.

Athletes were given a specific area to store clothes, these facilities also provided areas to bathe after competing, thus existed the first dressing room, but where would they keep their clothes and valuables? Wooden shelves or enclosed shelving were on display in these rooms where the items which were stored here were deemed so important they were under surveillance by an allocated guard. A law was put into place that any man who was found to have stolen an item within these units was to be killed.

Now, wooden shelving under surveillance is all well and good, but it's not very similar to the type of locker that we all know in the 21^st Century. After all, what is a locker without a lock?

An archaeologist found a lock in the Khorasan Palace in Nineveh, Egypt. This is known to be the oldest lock found to date and is said to have been used between 500BC-300AD by the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

Although this history is fascinating, I bring you now to 1923 when a cabinet maker named W.N. Vance began to develop a locker closely resembling the ones which we are familiar with today. Vance ran a wooden cabinet business and after realising the fantastic use of a newly crafted design he created a patent for a metal locker. Combining the innovative locker design with another company that manufactured padlocks, their business began filling schools in California with the traditional metal locker which set the course for the future of lockers.

Thanks to the development of design dating all the way back to Ancient Greece, lockers can be found in schools, offices, banks, leisure centres, and now with the innovative design from La Maison Chic Luxury Furniture, in your home.