What did George Nissel green plaque do at Siddons Lane?

The Story

# George Nissel's Laboratory on Siddons Lane In 1946, George Nissel established G. Nissel & Co on this quiet Marylebone street, creating Britain's first independent contact lens laboratory and fundamentally transforming eye care in the post-war era. Here, in this modest location tucked away in London's West End, Nissel began the meticulous work of crafting and fitting contact lenses when such technology was still largely experimental and inaccessible to ordinary people—a revolutionary venture that would make vision correction available far beyond the exclusive circles where it had previously existed. From this very building on Siddons Lane, he perfected the techniques and built the reputation that would establish contact lens fitting as a professional discipline in Britain, training practitioners and developing methods that set the standard for decades to come. Standing here today, you're at the birthplace of an industry: the place where one man's determination to democratize eye care began, in a laboratory that grew from a single address into a legacy that changed how millions of Britons see the world.