Dorman Smith socket

PART OF:
The Bob
Made:
1930-1945 in England
D+S (Dorman Smith) socket.

Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

Buy this image as a print 

Buy

License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

License

D+S (Dorman Smith) socket.
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

D+S (Dorman Smith?) Socket. Circular brown bakelite socket, three-pin.

Part of the Bob Gray collection of electrical objects.

At around the time this plug was made, competing types of plugs, which were not interchangeable, were made by companies such as Crabtree, MK, and Dorman Smith. This plug was designed to have an easy to replace fuse which also doubled up as the live, current-carrying pin. The fuse could be replaced using thumb and fingers without any tools at all. Although a convenient design, it was more expensive than the system which was eventually adopted as British Standard 1363 in 1947. The BS 1363 used a cheap fuse located within the plug whereas this type of fuse had to be heavily built with a brass screw thread on one end.

Details

Category:
Electricity Supply
Object Number:
Y2012.15.60.2
Materials:
bakelite
Measurements:
65 mm x 43 mm, 65 mm, 10 g
type:
electric plug
credit:
Mr Robert Gray