Lighthouses

With the exception of the lights at the head of Berwick pier, those on the Farne Islands, on the Northumbrian coast, off Bamborough, are the most northerly in England. Legend tells us that from a now ruined tower on one of the islands a light was formerly shown as a warning to passing ships; and if that was so, then in all probability it was one of those lights of which we have already spoken as being supported by charity, and was tended by a monk or hermit from the famous monastery of Holy Island. Such light would, of course, have been extinguished at the dissolution of the religious houses, and no other, however dim or flickering, marked the dangers of the Farne rocks till the year 1776. Proposals were made for a lighthouse on these islands some hundred years before, by a certain Sir John Clayton, who put forward many schemes for lighthouses, as objects of profit, at many points on the coast, but nothing came of it; it was crushed by the influence of the Newcastle traders, who did not relish having to pay for it. The sailors engaged in the northern coasting trade set these proposals afloat again in 1727, but they were stifled before they came to anything, though the then secretary to the Trinity House admits that he has heard ‘judicious commanders’ speak well of the suggestion.

However, opposition—honest or the reverse—kept the Farne rocks without a lighthouse till the year 1776, when the first of the two that at present light them was set up. The second, on the Longstones, was built in 1810, and it is this latter that has become familiar to us as the scene of Grace Darling’s heroism.

It was customary, sixty or seventy years ago, to place a family in charge of a lighthouse—a man, his wife, and one or two children, all of whom, male and female, if above a certain age, received a trifling salary, and were looked upon—women and girls quite as much as men and boys—as assistant light-keepers; indeed, there were women light-keepers appointed by the Trinity House so late as 1860.

An arrangement such as this was adopted at the Longstones lighthouse; William Darling, his wife, and their daughter Grace, a girl of twenty-one, trimmed and tended the lights as recognized officials of the Trinity House.

Grace was born at Bamborough, but she had gone with her parents to live at the Longstones when but a few months old. In this desolate home she had grown accustomed to every form of weather; the laughter of a summer’s breeze equally with the wail of a winter’s gale had been her cradle song. As she grew up, she spent the time she was not helping her parents, in rowing and fishing, and when ten or eleven years old her father could trust her to manage the lighthouse boat even in the roughest weather. Grace was no scholar—her opportunities of acquiring information were obviously limited—but she could read and write well, and she made good use of the former accomplishment, eagerly drinking in every scrap of information that her father’s twenty or thirty books contained regarding acts of courage and daring performed by the toilers of the sea either in peace or war. Her great ambition was that, one day, she might have the opportunity of emulating the example of those whose deeds she loved to study.

That opportunity came to her at last. At dusk, on September 6, 1838, the wind that throughout the day had been freshening was blowing considerably more than half-a-gale, and in the teeth of this the steamer Forfarshire, hailing from Hull and bound for Dundee, passed between the Farne rocks and the Northumberland coast. The ship was ‘labouring’ heavily, and Grace, as well as her father and mother, eagerly watched her progress till night closing in hid her from their view.

With the darkness the wind blew yet more fiercely; all through the night it raged with unpitying fury, and the watchers on the Longstones talked long and anxiously over the vessel that had passed them. Darling did not like the look of her, or the way the storm seemed to be handling her. Neither father, mother, nor daughter took any sleep that night: when not busy tending to the light or wiping the spray from the glass of the lantern they peered into the darkness, thinking perhaps they might catch a glimpse of some signal of distress either from the steamer or some other vessel, yet no light or signal was observable.

But the first rays of morning revealed to Darling that his apprehensions for the Forfarshire were well-founded. On Hawkers Rocks, a mile away from the lighthouse, could be seen the remains of the wrecked vessel, the remnant of her living freight clinging to it. What could be done? It seemed madness to launch the lighthouse boat in such a gale, but Grace begged her father to make the attempt; she would go with him, she said, and God, she felt sure, would give them strength to perform the daring enterprise.

We know what happened. Darling yielded to his daughter’s prayer, and the survivors of the Forfarshire, few in number it is true, but all that outlived the fury of that awful night, were brought by Grace and her father safely back to the lighthouse and carefully nursed by the humane keepers till the weather changed and they were taken to Bamborough. Thus the ambition of Grace’s life had been realized; she had tested her courage, and it had not failed her.

All along the Northumbrian coast the news of the daring deed spread with wonderful rapidity: presents and letters were heaped upon Grace Darling in a manner she had never expected. The Trinity House granted the ‘family’ leave of absence from the lighthouse, and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland entertained them at Alnwick, where, on leaving, Grace was presented with a purse containing £700. Her exploit was the talk of London and of all England, and the print-sellers’ windows gave a liberal display of her portraits.

She received all these tokens of approbation with an unaffected pleasure that added to her charms and her popularity, but her naturally retiring disposition would not allow her to accept the offer of an enterprising theatre manager to appear nightly on the London boards.

Neither were offers of a more permanent nature—offers of a heart and home—accepted by her; the very exploit that had made her famous seemed to bind her affections more closely to her insular home and her duties there. She spent the rest of her days on the lighthouse, helping her father and mother as before, and only paying an occasional visit to the mainland. Though innumerable accounts of her early days and of her daring exploit exist—the latter is the subject of poem, song, and story—we hear little of her subsequent life, or of the time when the illness which a few years later terminated fatally first manifested itself. She died on October 20, 1842, and was buried in the churchyard at Bamborough. Her death was the signal for a fresh outburst of literary commemoration of her daring act; but no more appropriate tribute to her memory exists than the lifeboat now stationed at Bamborough, which bears her name, and which, winter after winter, renders good service to vessels wrecked or in distress, often on the very reef on which the Forfarshire stranded. Grace Darling is not forgotten by the stalwart Northumbrian sailors who man that lifeboat; her story and the song in praise of her courage has been taught to them by their fathers and mothers, and they may yet be heard to sing it, as in their well-fitted boat, possessed of the latest appliances to ensure safety, they make their way to some sinking ship, and think of the frail girl and her father, who in nothing more than an open rowing boat risked their lives to save a perishing crew.