Origins
In 1941 Lord Reith, then the minister of Works and Planning, established committees to investigate problems likely to affect the post-war rebuilding of Britain. One of these, the Electrical Installations Committee, was charged with the study of all aspects of electrical installations in buildings. Convened in 1942, they reported in 1944.
The plug and socket system defined in BS 1363 is a result of one of the report's recommendations. Britain had previously used a combination of 2 amp, 5 amp and 15 amp round pin sockets. In an appendix to the main report (July 1944), the committee proposed that a completely new socket outlet and fused plug should be adopted as the "all-purpose" domestic standard. The main report listed 8 points to consider in deciding the design of the new standard. The first of these was stated as “To ensure the safety of young children it is of considerable importance that the contacts of the socket-outlet should be protected by shutters or other like means, or by the inherent design of the socket outlet.” Others included flush fitting, no need for a switch, requirements for terminals, bottom entry for the cable, and contact design. The appendix added 5 further "points of technical detail" including requirements that plugs could not be inserted incorrectly, should be easy to withdraw, and should include a fuse.
This requirement for a new system of plugs and sockets led to the publishing in 1947 of "British Standard 1363:1947 Fused-Plugs and Shuttered Socket-Outlets".
One of the other recommendations in the report was the introduction of the ring circuit system (often informally called a "ring main"). In this arrangement a cable connected to a fuse, or circuit breaker, in the distribution board was wired in sequence to a number of sockets before being terminated back at the distribution board, thus forming a ring final circuit. In the ring circuit, each socket was supplied with current by conductors on both sides of the 'loop.' This contrasts with a system wherein a single cable runs out radially, like a spoke, from the distribution board to serve a number of sockets. Since the fuse or circuit breaker had to be rated for the maximum current the ring could carry (30 A or 32 A for breaker), each plug connecting to the ring requires a fuse, rated to protect the appliance flexible power cable. The ring circuit in the UK requires the use of BS 1363 plugs and sockets, but the BS 1363 system is not limited to use with ring circuits.
Read more about this topic: BS 1363
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