Hello,
By a quite weird coincidence, I came across this page. The person you refer to would be me, John Wilkes Safe cracker.
Hi from Cape Town, but born in Manchester. Big fan of the Willenhall lock museum, having been shown around it a good few years ago by Derek Stetham (the then head of Yale training).
Very well aware of the lock referred to by my namesake, but not sure of the link - also true for John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, after whom John Wilkes Booth was named as an honorific middle name for his campaign against slavery - going to have to research some lineage here...
Anyway, these days I no longer open Safes (on a daily basis), but design and make high security locks, which, in the true sense of the word, makes me a locksmith - I don't really know any others - the rest can really be referred to as security technicians. No disrespect intended at all, just a semantical thing.
In any event, Cheers,
John