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More old mains sockets removed

Workshopshed

Just swapped out these old sockets. Never seen anything quite like the bottom one. The earth was wrapped around a plate rather than having its own screw terminal.

image

I searched up the patent.

https://patents.google.com/patent/GB449631A/en

449,631. Plug couplings. ARNOLD, C. L., and DOWSETT, R. W., and MK. ELECTRIC, Ltd., Wakefield Street, Edmonton, London. Fab. 12, 1935, No. 4495. [Class 38 (i)] A socket fitting has a protector 8 that covers the supply sockets 2 and is moved in a plane by the earthing-pin 9a after it has entered its socket 3 so as to uncover the sockets 2. The projection 6a enters the socket 3 below its entry end and a guide 6b slides in holes in the socket 3 and in a plate 4a attached thereto, a spring 7 acting to keep the protector normally in the position shown. In modifications the sliding protector is furnished with a pair of limbs guided on parallel rods and interengaging with a similar pair of fixed limbs supporting the rods, springs being inserted between the limbs, or it may be guided in a channel in the base or in a cap thereon.

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  • I have never seen one of those either. The logo has "MK" in it, so it is probably well over-engineered. I've read the patent description and I think I can see how it is supposed to work but I'd like to get hands-on before I could be sure. I'm guessing something involving knife switches for the L's and N's, with the three horizontal plates acting as a junction-box for the three earths; two to the sockets and one from the incoming cable. The two mounting holes through the plastic look as if they are lined with brass rivets, both look too close to the six-sided blue lump for my liking so I think that originally the conduit box and the white front panel were both probably brown Bakelite. The white front panel could have been Bakelite too with a thin steel or brass plate covering the front to make it look nicer. Which could be why the holes in the white front panel as shown, don't match the shape of the blue lump. We had light switches where the front panel was decorative and with a single hole to clamp the works to it using a threaded thin round 'nut' around the house when I was a kid, along with a selection of 15 amp, 5 amp, and 2 amp sockets. It's a wonder we weren't electrified!

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  • I have never seen one of those either. The logo has "MK" in it, so it is probably well over-engineered. I've read the patent description and I think I can see how it is supposed to work but I'd like to get hands-on before I could be sure. I'm guessing something involving knife switches for the L's and N's, with the three horizontal plates acting as a junction-box for the three earths; two to the sockets and one from the incoming cable. The two mounting holes through the plastic look as if they are lined with brass rivets, both look too close to the six-sided blue lump for my liking so I think that originally the conduit box and the white front panel were both probably brown Bakelite. The white front panel could have been Bakelite too with a thin steel or brass plate covering the front to make it look nicer. Which could be why the holes in the white front panel as shown, don't match the shape of the blue lump. We had light switches where the front panel was decorative and with a single hole to clamp the works to it using a threaded thin round 'nut' around the house when I was a kid, along with a selection of 15 amp, 5 amp, and 2 amp sockets. It's a wonder we weren't electrified!

Children