So much for the general history of coast lighting. The reader will now wish to hear something about the luminants used of old, and of the improvements that have been made in the system of lighting. It has been said that the lighthouses of the ancients were tall columns, on the tops of which grates were placed, and in these fires of wood or coal were kept burning. The mediaeval lighthouses of England were, some of them, of similar construction, but there were varieties; if the light was placed on the steeple or tower of a church or chapel it would probably be of the kind mentioned; but if the light was shown from within the tower, candles or oil lamps would be used. The hermits of the Ecrehou refer to the fire which they kept burning all night to warn passing vessels; the monks or hermits of Chale, in the Isle of Wight, displayed a light of candles or oil in the top story of their tower, which was an octagon with windows on every side.
After the Reformation the use of oil seems at first to have been entirely laid aside; a few of the lighthouses erected were lit by candles, but coal or wood fires certainly illuminated the majority. Given a properly filled grate and a fair breeze, this was certainly the best kind of light.
But towards the close of the seventeenth century it entered into the mind of economical man to enclose his coal or wood fire in a lantern with a funnel or chimney at the top. This saved the fuel, but, for that reason, it did not improve the light, and the fire, no longer fanned by the sturdy sea-breezes, needed the constant use of bellows to maintain a flame. Sailors complained a good deal of these shut-in lights, which were tried at Lowestoft, the North Foreland, and the Scilly Islands, and after a while the lanterns were removed; but coal or wood fires were used as lighthouse luminants as late as 1822.
The situation of the Eddystone—miles from the mainland, with no space for fuel-stacking—rendered it necessary to think of some other luminant than a fire of coal or wood, and candles, a considerable number of them, of course, were used there from the date of its first construction till comparatively recent times, when oil lamps were substituted.
The use of oil as a luminant for lighthouses did not—after the Reformation—come in till almost the middle of the last century. This is strange, as oil was certainly used for that purpose by the mediaeval lighthouse-keepers. In November, 1729, a certain Thomas Corbett begged the permission of the Trinity House to try the experiment of lighting the South Foreland lighthouse with oil. I do not know if this trial was ever made, or what was thought of it if it were; but certainly oil was not generally re-adopted as a lighthouse luminant till much later.
In 1763 we first hear of an endeavour to increase the intensity of the light shown by means of a reflector. It was then successfully tried by William Hutchinson, a master mariner of the port of Liverpool, in connection with a rudely constructed flat-wick oil lamp; M. Argand, a citizen of Geneva, about the year 1780, improved on this system by his cylindrical-wick lamps in conjunction with a silvered reflector. This is probably the form of light which The Gentleman’s Magazine tells us was, in 1783, displayed from a hill near Norwood, and nightly viewed by an astonished crowd on Blackfriars Bridge. On Argand’s system Augustine Fresnel afterwards improved, by his large concentric-wick lamp and lenses. Gas was suggested by Aldini of Milan in 1823; but for many years was used only for lighthouses on piers and harbours, or in places adjacent to gas works; and it was not till 1865 that we find gas construction taking place at out-of-the-way lighthouse stations for the purpose of supplying the light.
The year 1853 saw the first attempt at the use of electricity as a lighthouse luminant; a series of experiments with it were then carried out under Faraday’s supervision at the South Foreland. Nine years later Drummond tried the lime-light at the same lighthouse.
But there is yet one feature in the system of coast lighting which deserves attention. The difficulty felt by mariners in identifying a particular light when seen, was evidently experienced as early as the opening years of the last century, when lighthouses had begun to materially increase in number. It was not, however, till 1730 that we find any plan of distinction put forward. In that year Robert Hamblin, a barber at Lynn, patented his invention ‘for distinguishing of lights for the guidance of shipping,’ which was, that at each lighthouse station the lights should be placed ‘in such various forms, elevations, numbers, and positions that one of them should not resemble another,’ and he undertook—as soon as the distinguishing features were agreed upon—to prepare and publish a chart of the coasts of England and Wales, in which such lights should be distinctly expressed. It is probable that in a measure Hamblin’s plan was acted upon, as lights erected after this date were mostly arranged in groups.
But the really effectual method of distinguishing one lighthouse from another is that at present in use, of hiding the light shown for a certain number of minutes or seconds, varying at different lighthouses. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the constructive skill displayed in the machinery by which this temporary eclipsing is produced; but of the antiquity of the system it is our province to speak. It seems to have been first tried at Marstrand, a once thriving port of Sweden, some twenty miles to the north of Gottenburg, and its effects and utility were discussed in maritime circles throughout the world. But France alone, of the various countries that considered the new system, adopted it; long before we in England had taken any steps in the matter, France had given public notice that the French coast would be illuminated by lights which might be known one from another by the differences in the periods of their being visible or eclipsed, and the French government issued an explanatory chart.
So much for the general history of coast lighting. Now that we have seen with what vigour the lighthouse battle was fought in the past, and the fierce opposition that has been offered to almost every lighthouse scheme put forward, we shall not wonder that such ‘luxuries’ as lighthouses did not rapidly multiply on the English coast; a century ago there were not forty on our shores from Berwick round to the Solway Firth. Of some of these we shall speak in subsequent chapters, again reminding the reader that the general acquirement of all lighthouses by the Trinity House took place in the year 1836, and that, for many years before that date, the policy of the Trinity House towards lighthouse schemes had entirely changed. As I said at the close of the last chapter, all selfish hostility to privately maintained lights had ceased, and the Trinity House was working in the true interests of navigation, and its only desire for the entire control of our English lighthouses was that in regard to their management the very best should be done that could be done.