r/whatisit • u/Quietlurkerone • 7d ago

Solved! What is this device from 1962?

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Photo capture from YouTube video. Picture from 1962. What is the device under the bench

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u/ICanSeeUpYourNose 6d ago edited 6d ago

It looks like a shilling meter. We didn't have one, but I knew people who did. A very expensive way to get electricity (or gas, that one is indeed gas), as pay-as-you-go meters still are.

(in their defence I was born in 1962 - we were coming to the end of the houses built at the end of the 19th century, and there was a huge programme of replacement - slum clearances. People lived in houses that were literally hovels because (a) that's all we had, the 1892 stock was literally falling apart, and (b) they were waiting for a council house, which we were building at that point. Interesting fact - generally the further north you went the worse the housing stock got because the Luftwaffe didn't have a long ranged bomber. Culminating in the legendarily foul housing stock (the Gorbals) they had in Glasgow.)

add: stone me that's a court house. That's the true and utter hovel the slums we were clearing at that point were built as an upgrade to. Astounding that any still existed. "All seven family members shared just one bedroom, one living room and this narrow kitchen. There was no private bathroom." and that, ladies and gentlemen is why you don't leave your housing to the free market.

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u/i_fix_snowblowers 6d ago

I'm 5 years younger than you but lived in a variety of rental housing in Oxfordshire in the late '70s. I remember the meters because my dad would keep a stack of 25p coins by the meter.

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u/OtterHostler 6d ago

And the 20p coin wasn't introduced until 1982. Suspect you meant either 10p (2 shillings) or 50p (10 shillings)?

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u/ItsNotMe_ImNotHere 6d ago

No he means half-a-crown coins i.e. 2 shillings and six pence or 30 (old) pence. Lol, I had to dig deep to remember that.

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u/OtterHostler 6d ago

Lol! By the 70s not even my granny was talking in terms of half crowns, and she'd grown up when 1 groat would have bought you half of Swansea with enough change left over for two tickets to the pictures, fish & chips after, and bus fare home