A visitor to Victorian London who found themselves in its many narrow alleys would have seen large numbers of wooden shutters reflecting sunlight into the offices. These weren’t just wooden shutters though, but Chappuis’ Patent Daylight Reflectors, invented by a French photographer based on Fleet Street in 1850, and there was a whole range of them to improve lighting inside buildings before widespread electric lighting.
Read more: The forgotten era of Light Reflectors in London’s alleys, Ian Visits.
