IMPROVEMENTS IN REFLECTORS OR REFLECTING APPARATUS OR FITTINGS FOR USE IN LIGHTING-UP THEATRES AND OTHER BUILDINGS
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick Trotman at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 8th May
*1872.
I, FREDERICK TROTMAN, of the 'Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park,
in the County of Middlesex, Refreshment Contractor, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN REFLECTORS OR
REFLECTING APPARATUS OR FITTINGS FOR USE IN LIGHTING-UP THEATRES AND
OTHER BUILDINGS," to be as follows:-
The Invention will be more readily understood by comparison with
the ordinary mode of reflecting the light from the footlights on to the
stage of a theatre, in which, whether a dwarf screen exist or not between
the stage floor and the auditorium, the gas lights which usually have
argand-burners-are-provided-each-with-an-ordinary-semi-cylindrical or
dished reflector, reflecting the light away from the audience and on to
the performers and scenery. Now this I judge to involve a wasteful
expenditure of gas, which in degree at least it is the purpose of the
Invention to prevent by use of my improved reflecting arrangements in
theatres and any buildings and places where it may be applicable.

page_text: With this purpose in view the Invention comprises a continuous
reflector against a row or series of gas or other lights or burners,
preferably flat flames (such as those produced by batswing or fishtail
burners), and in performing it, it is contemplated that the reflectors
should be applied on or against the back or stage side of a screen situate {
as above-mentioned between the auditorium and the stage, and in a
straight line or curved on plan, and be flat or curved to a concave or to a
convex surface as regards the sectional form, the surface being plain or
with flutings or beadings or plain or curved faces thereon. Looking
glass, bright tin, tinsel paper of varying color as desired, or any convenient 1
reflecting material to be used.
And to prevent misapprehension the term "continuous” as above or
elsewhere herein employed is to be understood as including "practically
continuous," for it is intended in some cases to frame up the reflector in
pieces, which sometimes will have bars or parts of the frame between 1
the pieces.
.
In connection with the above, the the Invention also comprises the
application of a "continuous" reflecting surface (flat or curved, and
with or without flutings, beadings, or facets), on an incline to be formed
at front of the stage and on the stage side of the footlights, so as to
reflect the light upwards and outwards towards the audience.
The Invention also comprises the application of similar continuous
reflectors to batten or top lights and also to the upright side or wing
lights, and is to be performed by the use of reflectors of any convenient
material, as before, and in some cases framed or made up in pieces.
And further the Invention comprises the application of conical
reflectors above and generally central, with regard to a series of gas or
other burners or lights disposed in a ring-like or regular disposition
around a central vertical line, whether in a line of jets or as star or
other burners or clusters of burners disposed at a short distance apart &
from each other. And the surfaces of the said reflectors may be fluted,
recded, or treated in like manner as before.