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It wasn't uncommon for people to just jam wires into the outlet in a pinch, to the extent that public service announcements warned against it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH0Kxjx0sEM

Britain had two common standards for electrical outlets (BS 1363 and the older BS 546) plus a few less-common proprietary types. BS 1363 became the preferred standard for new installations in 1947, but the other types remained fairly common for decades. Appliances were not required to be supplied with a fitted plug until 1994, by which time BS 1363 had become dominant (if not quite ubiquitous).



Thank you for this context. I couldn't guess why would anyone sell a device that's supposed to be plugged without a plug. But if there were different standards it makes some sense.




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