An Elizabethan Padlock from the Ann Francis Wreck Opened After 400 Years

A treasure from a 1583 shipwreck

The padlock belongs to the so-called Ann Francis treasure, named after an English merchant ship driven ashore by a storm off Wales in 1583. According to researchers, the padlock once secured a chest on board the vessel, before becoming separated from the wealth it protected.

Part of the cargo was recovered at the time of the wreck, while the rest was swallowed by the sea. Over the following decades, dredging and storms on Margam beach, in south Wales, brought to light part of this lost treasure.

A metal detectorist behind the discovery

Between 1996 and 2017, metal detectorist Peter Hughes recovered the padlock along with much of the treasure, which included gold and silver coins. The lock was later acquired by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

Hughes recalls spending years trying to open the padlock without ever finding the right combination. The conservators, for their part, feared damaging the mechanism, especially since sand could be heard shifting inside the dials and the number of possible combinations exceeded a thousand.

Tomography to read the inside of the padlock

To study the internal mechanisms without damaging them, the team used micro-computed tomography, a technique that takes thousands of X-ray images from which a three-dimensional digital image is reconstructed. This method is usually used to study bones and biological structures.

By matching the internal notches to the letters engraved on the outside of the 3D image, the researchers were able to identify the correct code, "ANCE", and open the padlock. Researcher David Williams, of Cardiff University, acknowledged that this was a first for his team.

A smugglers' ship and a disputed wreck

The Ann Francis belonged to Francis Shaxton, a merchant known for his smuggling activities. He had declared that the ship was sailing along the east coast of England, from King's Lynn to Hartlepool, when it was in fact heading to Spain to deliver a cargo of wheat. Spain, dependent on grain, paid for these deliveries in gold and silver from its conquests in Central and South America.

On the return journey, the ship was caught by a violent storm on 28 December 1583 and ran aground on Margam beach. Locals quickly plundered the wreck before a legal dispute broke out over ownership of the goods. A Welsh lord who claimed the wreck drew up an inventory of the items he had seized, including cannons, weapons, a piece of mast, Spanish silver and three chests whose locks had been broken. The padlock may have secured one of these chests.

A mystery that remains

Elizabethan combination padlocks are known in Britain, but this one is exceptionally well preserved and linked to a dated wreck, which makes it a unique find. Alastair Willis, curator of numismatics at the National Museum, stressed that the code was an enigma now solved.

One question remains: did the code have any meaning for its owner? The mystery endures, and the discovery underlines the importance of shipwrecks as witnesses to maritime life and Atlantic trade at the end of the sixteenth century.