Kettles of this type were designed to carry water to a picnic, the screw caps on spout and filling opening having to be removed (for obvious reasons) before setting the kettle to boil. Letting the spout cap dangle on its chain comes naturally enough, but what to do with the main cap? Remove it and lose it in the grass? Having removed it, an unwary hand gets steam-scalded reaching for the handle? My solution is to unscrew the cap but leave it barely engaged on a thread so there’s no pressure build-up or prospect of the cap falling off the kettle while pouring, as would be the case if it were wholly unscrewed and sat loosely on the filler opening. Richard Frederick Morgan of Felcourt, East Grinstead took out this patent in 1934 with his own solution, a reversible kettle lid, screwed on for getting water to the picnic, unscrewed but pushed into the filler opening in use, the cap then having vents to release steam and prevent a build-up of pressure. John
The reversible lid described in the patent has one flaw that I can see. After boiling, the lid would be too hot to touch. This might lead to burns if you tried to unscrew and reverse the lid before it had cooled sufficiently. Clever idea though. Probably thought up by a CCS member. Ben
