Ferdinand Fleabite . . . . The A to Z of Slightly Strange Unknown Victorian Inventors and Explorers

Ferdinand Fleabite

A master locksmith and a man with a suspicious past, Ferdinand Fleabite suddenly came into money and rapidly became a well know figure at all the important parties, mixing with very cream of British society.  His invention was the now infamous Fleabite Fixer a device that allowed almost anyone to open even the most secure locks of the day.

It was a device that in the wrong hands would make it almost impossible to secure buildings or safes or anything that relied on a decent lock and key. However Ferdinand Fleabite was not a fool and knew that many large banks and organisations would pay large sums to avoid the device becoming readily available to a mass market. So he was able to make a deal that made him incredibly wealthy. But Mr Fleabite’s past meant he had friends that were keen to get hold of the Fleabite Fixer device and so Ferdinand Fleabite had several hundred of the devices made in Hong Kong which he sold in the small advertisements of the Exchange and Mart knowing that it was not read by the high fly bankers and businessmen of the time.

Unfortunately the authorities became suspicious when the Bank of England was easily broken into four times in a month and arrested Mr Fleabite for questioning. He escaped the very same night and fled to the United States where he slipped his Fleabite Fixer into the case of a young lad called Harry Houdini in order to get through customs.  It was only several years later when he accused Mr Houdini of using the Fleabite Fixer that he was recaptured by the authorities.  Although again he escaped the following evening and was thought to have fled to Hong Kong setting up a company making tap dancing novelty clockwork toys that were able to escape from a locked toy box tied into a sack and sealed in a tank full of water.