"Hotlock Food Conveyor" hot box

"Hotlock Food Conveyor", insulated candle-heated food hot box, for emergency feeding purposes, 1945-1959

How to feed a population in the event of a disaster is an important question. Alongside shelter and medication, food is an immediate practical necessity. Between 1945 and the 1990s, the UK kept a strategic stockpile of tinned and dried rations to feed the country in case of nuclear war or other emergency. This hotbox would have been used to transport warm meals to affected areas. The container is insulated and used a solid fuel source inside to keep food at a warm, stable temperature without drying it out. It was part of a large group of equipment donated to the Science Museum as the strategic stockpile was being wound down in the 1990s.

Hotlock meal carriers were patented in the 1920s by Emily Godwin Fry Lockyer who established Hotlock Ltd. The Hotlock cabinets received press attention as a time saving device in the home and as a piece of equipment that could be helpful when serving meals on a large scale such as in a hospital or a work canteen. They were also used for meals on wheels services. In 1922, Lockyer received a Certificate of Merit in the Domestic Labour Saving Competition organised by the Women’s Engineering Society for the Hotlock and its pair the Coldlock, an insulated container to keep food cool.