Until January 28, 1807, the streets of our cities were dark at night (or rather there were only candles or oil lamps). The first street to be illuminated was Pall Mall, in London, in Westminster: a straight street that runs parallel to The Mall, the wide avenue that connects Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square. In short, a noble and crucial road, not by chance chosen for the first example of gas street lighting.
The credit goes to a German entrepreneur Friederich Albert Winzer (or Winsor) who in 1804 had patented a lamp that used gas distilled from coal, giving a public demonstration at the Lyceum Theater in London. Meanwhile in Europe there was talk of using this technology to light up the streets and Winzer beat everyone on the clock by buying a house in Pall Mall to be able to light the way. A few months later, on June 4, on the occasion of the birthday of King George III, using the same technique he made a light show similar to our video mapping. At that point the gas street lighting was rampant. A company was created, Gas Light and Coke Co., and in 1923 forty thousand gas lamps lit the streets of London.
to know more (Wired)
