In 1881 the first public electricity supply in the world was turned on in Godalming in Surrey, where gas street lights were replaced by electrical street lamps based on a system supplied by the German company Siemens. No sooner had the system been activated than the technical press reported issues associated with wiring. The lighting in side streets was dim and of poor quality due to the inadequacy of the cabling. There were also reports of children (and drunks) harming themselves on the exposed wires.

In the next year, the first edition of the British Wiring regulations was published. It was published by the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians and contained just four pages under the title Rules and Regulations for the Prevention of Fire Risks Arising from Electric Lighting.

The purpose of the Regulations were to ensure that workmanship was of the highest order and that the materials used are of suitable quality to do the work required and that the installations were safe.

The wiring regulations remained the responsibility of what became the Institute of Electrical Engineers (and later became IET) and in 1981 became aligned to IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standards.

Eleven years later, the regulations became a British Standards document and the harmonisation of wiring regulations became formalised. Further international harmonisation of standards aligns wiring regulations to CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization).

The most recent edition of the wiring regulations is the 18th Edition which was first published in April 2018 as BS7671:2008. In January 2022, Amendment 2 of the regulations was published and came into effect in September 2022.

For more information about the Electacourse 18th Edition Course click this link