Vintage British GE kettle...

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Nice kettle!

I like using electric kettles to boil water. They are so fast. They can even be faster than a microwave--although that, I guess, is variable given how power levels can vary between given models of a given heating product.

I remember being tempted by one British kettle years back, but passed. While cheap, careful study made me conclude that it would not be viable for boiling small amounts of water, which is what I was tending to do day to day.
 
I seem to remember my parents having a kettle exactly like this when I was a child - something very elegant about the design. Then they went to a Russell Hobbs Classic, which everyone seemed to have then. Most kettles now have no elements so you can boil tiny amounts of water and they are about 10 times faster than in days gone by.
 
That black connector...

Is what my granny used to plug her Hoover Juniors into. Both the 375 and the 1334 had the Hoover 2-pin plugs; she used it as an adapter-extension. It worked fine.
 
GE and GEC aren't the same company.

It's a little confusing, but GE the US General Electric Corp. and GEC (The General Electric Company of the UK) are not connected even though they have similar names. AEG also basically means General Electric in German.

GEC was founded in the 1880s and was known as GEC from about 1886. It actually predates the merger that created the GE Corp in the US.

GEC made pretty much everything electrical back in the day. Telephones, small appliances, fridges, washing machines, radios, televisions, computers, telecommunications switching equipment, defense systems (radar, communications, guidance etc), aerospace systems, heavy power equipment for energy networks etc etc. It was a huge organisation much like AEG, Siemens, GE etc etc

In the 1980s and 90s GEC was split up and various component businesses were bought or rebranded.

Its defense businesses were acquired by British Aerospace.

GEC Marconi, which designed telecommunications systems became part of Ericsson while its business systems division was picked up by Siemens.

GEC's transit systems businesses were mostly picked up by Alstom and Bombardier.

GEC's consumer product lines were mostly taken over by Merloni (The Indesit Company). These were the Hotpoint and Creda brands (and some others). GE (US) invested in 50% of Hotpoint from 1989. GEC disposed of its 50% holding to Merloni and then Merloni ultimately bought GE out and merged hotpoint (and the other brands) into its Ariston product line.

Then there were a range of small appliances and heating/cooling appliances which were spun out as Applied Energy Products Ltd. e.g. Redring (water heaters, handdryers etc), Xpelair (the best known brand of extractor fan in the UK)

Applied Energy Products (AEP) Ltd produces storage heaters under the Creda Brand and a wide range of eco-friendly home heating / heat recovery and ventilation systems under the Xpelair brand.

So, that's pretty much the story of GEC

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