A blast from the past

[VicParticipant @vic]

Someone on social media was asking what this was for.

Surprisingly you can still get switched ones, and also rewireable bayonet plugs (sold as lamp extensions!)

It certainly brings back memories, not seen these things for many years.

[VicParticipant @vic]

[Alan Waddington 2Participant @alanwaddington2]

Remember my mate living in a dingy top floor bedsit, it was freezing so he used to plug a fan heater into the communal landing light pendant.

Landlord couldn’t understand why lighting fuse kept blowing !

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Remember them well, surprising how much power you can get from a light socket. Noel.

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Somewhere recently I saw a very old ad for either South Bend or Atlas lathes and the machine was plugged into the light fitting using one of these adaptors!

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

I got one for a colleague who wanted Christmas lights in his porch and didn't have a power socket there. My dad said they were really popular before the war when electricity was billed by the socket or light fitting, not by a meter (once he wired up a house and was told not to put a light fitting in the front bedroom as there was a lamp-post outside giving free light).

Does anybody still have the kind with a pull-cord to change outlets? I remember one in my bedroom as a child with an incandescent bulb in one side and a neon night light in the other.

Brian G

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by noel shelley on 08/09/2023 18:20:50:

Remember them well, surprising how much power you can get from a light socket. Noel.

Fed from the 5A lighting circuit at 240V, power is 1.2kW – although fuses may carry quite a bit more current before (immediate) failure. 240V was the standard grid supply, along with wired fuses in their era.

I daresay I have a version of those, somewhere. They were handy for 500W IR heaters, for newly born/hatched offspring – back well into the 1950s. Three way square pin adapters and extension leads gradually displaced them.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

You used to see electric irons plugged into lightbulb sockets. Happy days.

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Electric blanket socket !

[KEITH BEAUMONTParticipant @keithbeaumont45476]

Dave Wooton,

You probably saw that add in a thread of mine a few years ago. Photo is in my Album under the Chennery Vee-Twin photos. Top row 3 rd from right.

Keith .

[JAParticipant @ja]

Posted by Ady1 on 08/09/2023 19:53:06:

You used to see electric irons plugged into lightbulb sockets. Happy days.

I think mine still does. I have not used it for more than 40 years. My elecric blanket was last used in the winter of 1978.

JA

[Chris Pearson 1Participant @chrispearson1]

Posted by Ady1 on 08/09/2023 19:53:06:

You used to see electric irons plugged into lightbulb sockets. Happy days.

Ah yes. With the shadows moving around in time with the motion of the smoothing iron.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I remember those switched two way adaptors, and our mum used to plug her iron into the switched side. I don't have one of those, but I do have a couple of bayonet plugs.

Now these are really old, the one on the left has No. 709 & Empire, moulded on the base, and the one on the right just has Empire Made moulded on its base. I probably found these in a box of oddments that my father had.

Regards Nick.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

5 amp

H

[Elliot HirstParticipant @elliothirst42758]

I remember a friend’s mother plugging her electric iron into one of these splitters. In Leeds we were on 210 volts until the mid60s when a changeover to 240 v was carried out. All of our equipment was checked by YEB the Yorkshire Electricity Board. Some was upgraded, some replaced and the immersion heater was granted a 10 year warranty. It never failed!

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Thanks Keith, yes it must have been in your Chenery album I saw it, actually says "plugs into lamp socket". Lamp sockets were made of sterner stuff in those days, I have visions of an old fashioned rewireable fuse glowing gently to itself in it's wooden fusebox!

Dave

[David Davies 8Participant @daviddavies8]

I remember the trailing leads from light sockets too.

The only issue is that there is no earth connection, so running lathes, irons etc from same is at the user's risk!

Dave

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

It's amazing what you find in dad's odds box,I've got a few of those fittings. Back in the 60s my dad had a concrete double garage, dad was very handy being a maintenance engineer at Vauxhall motors would tackle any job but electrical was not his best talent. He installed the electrics for the garage, proper cable ,lights ,sockets the lot. Mum my sister and me use to say that sometimes we would get tingles from the taps especially when dad was in the garage, this went on for a few years, he never come across this as he was not in the garage. He got a electrician around for some internal work, he found that the garage had not been earthed correctly causing the tingling on the taps. I can't imagine the electrical accidents in those days though lack of proper maintenance and procedure.

Bob

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I grew up in a Victorian mid-terrace. It had a consumer unit with two (rewireable) fuses, lights and sockets. My grandparents had bought the house in the late 1930s and it was then wired up by my uncle. It only had power sockets on the ground floor so if you wanted power for anything other than lights in the bedrooms these adapters were the only way and we used the type with pull cords. Two of the ground floor rooms only had one socket and I remember them being changed over from the old round pin sockets to the current type G. I don't think there were power sockets in all the bedrooms when it was sold in 2003.

Martin C

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Posted by David Davies 8 on 09/09/2023 07:59:49:

I remember the trailing leads from light sockets too.

The only issue is that there is no earth connection, so running lathes, irons etc from same is at the user's risk!

Dave

Hi Dave, I don't think my mum's iron even had an earth wire, but she had to have a new one shortly after the time I can remember it being plugged into the light adaptor. The new iron came with a wall storage plate, and had a three round pin plug, so couldn't be plugged into the light adaptor, so from then on had to be plugged into the only socket there was available. I can remember helping my dad, putting in a new twin and earth and a modern flat pinned socket in our front room, ready for when we had our first TV in 1963, as there wasn't any sockets in there.

Regards Nick.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Not strictly relevant but a work colleague of mine about 40 years ago decided to install an electric shower in his house. Found a convenient cable in the loft and joined his electric shower to it, couldn’t understand why the lights in the house dimmed when the shower was operated, the fusing arrangement consisted of rewritable fuses which were notorious for allowing very large current flow before they blew. I think a classic example of Darwin’s theory of evolution although he survived any catastrophic consequences. Dave W

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

I remember plugging iron into light socket was a non event. Iron was connected to mains gas.

Regards Ian.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Reading some of the horror stories on here makes me grateful we at least have 'part P' these days, although I must admit to I having exceeded its limitations on the odd occasion and there must still be incompetent idiots out there putting themselves and others at risk. In mitigation, I do/did hold some electrical qualifications, probably all now expired, but not related to domestic installations and the property will have to be electrically inspected by a qualified person before it is sold. I know exactly what contributors have been talking about because my late mother's house was wired throughout with 2-pin plug sockets cabled with rubber insulated conductors housed in wooden conduits. There was only one in each of the ground floor rooms except in the scullery (it was never called the kitchen) when my late grandfather had a 13amp socket installed by the local electrician in 1963 after he bought the family's first washing machine, a Rolls Rapide if I recall correctly. Before that it was a coal fire under a 'copper' which had been replaced by a second-hand gas washing machine in 1956, can you believe? The radiogram (1947) and the television (1959) and any other appliances were all plugged into two-pin 'double-adaptors' as we called them in those days. The house was rewired under a local authority housing improvement scheme in 1983 and I had it rewired again when I inherited the property in 2010.

Edited By Chris Crew on 09/09/2023 20:47:52

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

I helped my electrician Father part-rewire our home many years ago. I cannot be certain but I think it remained on the old fisewired separate lead to each outlet. We put a switch each end of the hall downstairs and another on the landing between bedroom doors. Operating any of these 3 switches, lit the light near the bottom of the stairs and the landing light simultaneously. Difficulty was the amount of strapped wires required and buried in the walls with the old conduit tubing made from rolled up strips of steel sheet and clamp on elbows. Dangerous system as power to lights taken from upstairs and downstairs. It worked of course, like so many dangerous setups.

I rewired my current home many years ago, but I did a safer arrangement. Two separately powered 2way switched circuits. Double switch near front door. One linked to a switch at the other end of the hall, near the kitchen, controls only the hall light with power from the downstairs lighting ring main. The other one of the double switch at the front door controls the landing light with the other switch between the bedroom doors and power taken from the upstairs ring main. It passed official check when meter was re- installed. (Meter removed from re- possessed house before I purchased it.)

John

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

My mother used her iron from one of those two-way light socket adaptors for years – until a shower of sparks almost set fire to the lampshade. Years of shaking about had frayed the insulation. But then, that was in the house with two fuseboxes – one for the fuses in the live side of the supply and one for the fuses in the neutral…

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