Retro Vintage Magnet Two-Way Adaptor | For Use with Small Domestic Electric Appliances | Shop Front Promotional Advertising Board (c1930)

Charles Arnold [MK Electric]

Published by circa . 1930., 1930

About this Item

18'' x 12'' Original shop front advertising board, complete with the original two-way adaptor which slots into the centre of the board, priced 5/9. On February 10, 1919, Charles Arnold set up Heavy Current Electric Accessories Company, the company that subsequently became MK Electric. At the heart of the MK socket there are "numerous flexible spring tongues which actually grip the pin in much the same manner as the legs of two caterpillars on opposite sides of a flower stem", according to the original patent filed in April 1919. You don't get flowery language like that in many modern patent applications. MK invented the modern light switch and a safety socket with a three-pin shutter system that prevents fingers from getting into danger. These are now so commonplace that it is possible to ignore the fact that they were the foundation for the British domestic electrical system. Charles Arnold's entrepreneurial career actually started in 1912 when he formed Belling & Company, an electric fire venture, with another Charles (Belling), with whom he shared digs. But at the start of the First World War in 1914 Charles Arnold enlisted, selling his interest in the company to Belling. At the end of the war when Charles Arnold was demobbed from the Royal Artillery - where he had risen to the rank of Captain - his old friend Charles Belling pointed out the need for a company producing switches and sockets, if only for the fires Belling was making. The company was well on the way to becoming a household name when the British Engineering Standards Association (BESA) revised its standards effectively making the Multy Kontact the standard. Not long after MK bought a five horsepower motor to replace its treadles and pulleys, the whole of Edmonton and District electricity (and the local trams) was brought to a standstill for six hours by a short circuit. The old man (as Mr Arnold was called when he wasn't around) generously gave the employees the rest of the day off work. In 1926 a small electroplating operation was added to the factory and the company bought its first delivery van. No-one was more delighted than Jack Brett. It had been his job to transport metal plates to the electroplaters in Ponders End four miles away by hand barrow! By 1928 MK was using the revolutionary new insulating material Bakelite, the same stuff those old fashioned radios were made from. MK also introduced the first ever shuttered socket, concealing the socket tubes and eliminating the alarming flash invariably accompanying plug withdrawal from old fashioned sockets. [From MK Electric archives]. Original and rare Bakelite two-way adaptor still remains with the board. Sadly the board has seen better days with damp staining to the paper, lifting of the paper to the top of the rear of the board. Member of the P.B.F.A. ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING.

Seller Inventory # 100232

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Retro Vintage Magnet Two-Way Adaptor | For Use with Small Domestic Electric Appliances | Shop Front Promotional Advertising Board (c1930)
• Publisher: circa . 1930.
• Publication Date: 1930