I think the use of paraffin as a fuel was driven by the different tax regimes for heating vs motor fuel. I recall as a small child in the 1960's that we had an old "Valor" portable paraffin stove which was moved from room to room as needed (before central heating). I remember it being an essential in heating up our cold bathroom before bath time in winter! I also recall paraffin lamps for when we had power cuts. I have a vague memory of a small vehicle visiting our street weekly, dispensing paraffin from a bowser for all the heaters and lamps. I also remember the special container we used to collect it in - like this one
https://classiccampstoves.com/threads/v ... ner.20074/
The gold standard was of course Esso Blue paraffin advertised with the jingles "They asked me how I knew, it was Esso Blue, I of course replied, with other grades one finds, smoke gets in your eyes", and "boom boom boom boom, Esso Blue", which my father used to sing at the drop of a hat.
When we moved to a bigger house in 1971 we found an old Lister or Petter single cylinder stationary engine at the bottom of the garden which was belt-coupled to a large circular saw for log cutting. My father, who worked for Mirrlees Blackstone, a marine diesel engine manufacturer which was part of Hawker Siddeley which also owned Lister and Petter at that time, restored it, got it running and eventually sold it. It was a dual fuel engine - it had to be started on (expensive) petrol, and then when warmed up you would switch to the cheaper paraffin.
A quick look at wikipedia brings up "power kerosene" as an Australian English term for "tractor vaporising oil", a form of paraffin where its octane rating was boosted by additives so it was more directly substitutable for petrol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractor_vaporising_oil
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