Coming southwards from Harwich, we are soon at the mouth of the great water-way to London and in view of the Nore light. This is the first lightship of which we have had occasion to speak in particular, though there are now many stationed along our eastern and northern coasts—one of them, that on the Dudgeon Sands, being almost as old as the Nore.
We have seen the spirit in which the Trinity House of 1674 regarded the proposals, made by a lighthouse speculator, to establish floating lights at the Nore and at some other parts; it regarded the proposition as that of a madman. Well, it sounds an odd opinion to us to-day, but really it is no more odd than the opinion expressed, sixty or seventy years ago, by men who knew of what they talked, as to locomotive steam-engines and railway capabilities in general.
We do not hear of another proposal for floating lights at the Nore till 1730. Robert Hamblin had then devised a scheme for getting the whole of the lighting of the English coast into his own hands, and the dues therefrom into his own pocket. His plan was to fix floating lights at short distances from the shore, in such positions as would render the existing lighthouses absolutely useless. It was a bold stroke, and so far successful that he actually got his patent from the crown and established some of his lights, amongst them that at the Nore.
But his reign was short: the Trinity House addressed a powerful remonstrance to the law officers of the crown, the owners of private lighthouses joined in the complaint, and Hamblin’s patent was speedily cancelled.
But before the cancelling he had parted with any rights he possessed under his general patent with regard to the lightships at the Nore and at one or two other points, and in 1732, the purchaser, David Avery, placed a lightship at the east end of the Nore Sands. After circulating in shipping circles very glowing accounts of the benefits which this light would yield to navigation, he began to ask for his tolls, and by a little judicious dealing with the Trinity House he managed to get that body on his side in doing so. This is what he did. He arranged that the Trinity House should itself apply for a new patent from the crown—not in general words, but simply for a lightship at the Nore—and that he should take a lease of this patent, when granted, for a term of sixty-one years at a yearly rent of £100. When we remember what the traffic in and out of the Thames was, even in 1730, we shall see that Avery must have made a good profit on the £100 a year he paid the Trinity House.
MODEL OF A LIGHTSHIP BUILT IN 1790.
(From the Trinity House Museum.)
The lightship at the Nore turned out fairly successful. Of course the arrangements for securing her in her position were of a very primitive type. Even now, with the strongest of cables and anchors, a lightship will sometimes break away from her moorings and scud before the gale. That is why the United States Government is replacing lightships by pile-lighthouses wherever the thing can be done. But in 1732 these breakings-away were far more frequent, and the first lightship at the Nore broke her moorings twice in three months of that year.
As a consequence, the number of lightships around the English coast did not rapidly multiply. However, every few years saw some improvement in the anchoring arrangements of these vessels, and the benefit, the utility, of lightships—when once they could be trusted to keep their positions—became more and more apparent. To-day we have between forty and fifty of them round the coast of England.
The lighting arrangements on lightships were also, at first, very rude and unsatisfactory. Small lanterns—each containing a cluster of tiny candles that needed to be constantly replenished—were suspended from the yardarm of the vessel’s mast, and these, on a gusty night, were often blown out, and occasionally blown bodily away. Yet such arrangements were not altered till early in the present century, when Robert Stephenson invented the form of lantern at present used, which surrounds the mast of the lightship. Inside this lantern is a circular frame, on which are fixed Argand lamps with reflectors, and each light and each reflector swings, by means of gimbals, so that, let the lightship roll or plunge as she may, the light is always steady and kept perpendicular by its own weight.
We do not know with certainty what was the staff, or crew, maintained on one of these first lightships, but there were few lights to trim and manage, and there is reason to believe that, when everything with regard to coast lighting was done as cheaply as could be, there was but one man to perform the tasks. Surely the loneliness of his life is too awful to contemplate. Even at the Eddystone and other isolated lighthouses the keeper was changed but seldom, and it is not likely that the lightship guard was oftener relieved.
The effect of such economical management must have been disastrous to the interests of navigation. Sudden death, illness, or accident might, at any moment, have rendered the single keeper incapable of lighting his lamps, and dire disaster to vessels, trusting to see the light, must, almost of necessity, have followed; but before long things were better ordered, and two men were kept in every lightship.
The immobility, so far as progress is concerned, of a lightship renders life upon one particularly tedious. Roll or pitch she may, but forward she never goes—that is, if all keeps well with her anchor and chains. It is of this that present-day dwellers on lightships most complain—the dull monotony of a life at anchor. Even the Flying Dutchman’s penance had advantages over it; he, at any rate, witnessed continual change of scene, he was permitted to enjoy the rest of progress.
But monotony is about all that a modern lightship keeper has to complain of, and even that is reduced to a minimum by the latest regulations. A keeper nowadays has never less than three companions; the Trinity House boats pay him frequent visits, bringing fresh water, fresh victuals, and a supply of books and papers; and he can now, in many cases, by means of the telegraph or telephone, speak with the shore whenever needful. Besides, by her build, finish, and fittings, a modern lightship is, to a sailor, a really comfortable home. Each of these vessels costs between three and four thousand pounds to turn out complete and equipped for service.
Of course some lightship stations are much more lonely than others. The ever-passing stream of traffic in and out of the Thames renders the Nore one of the ‘gayest’ lightships on which to be stationed, and consequently one of the most popular. Life there is free from that singular and almost overpowering melancholy so wearying to the men at, say, the Seven Stones lightship, anchored midway between the Scillies and the Land’s End; indeed, the two stations cannot be for a moment contrasted. You might as well compare life ‘lived’ in Piccadilly with life ‘passed’ in a by-road at Finsbury Park.