When worthy Mr. Phillips, the Liverpool Quaker, taking thought in what
way he could best benefit his fellow-creatures, built the beacon on the
Smalls Rock in 1772, he could hardly have made a happier selection of "a
great good to serve and save humanity." There are few enterprises more
heroic or beneficent than those connected with the construction and
management of lighthouses. From first to last, from the rearing of the
column on the rock to the monotonous, nightly vigil in attendance on the
lamps--from the setting to the rising of the sun--the valour,
intrepidity, and endurance, of all concerned are called into play, and
the wild perils and stirring adventures they experience impart to the
story of their labours a thrilling and romantic interest. In the case of
the Smalls Lighthouse, for instance, Whiteside, the self-taught
engineer, and his party of Cornish miners had no sooner landed, and got
a long iron shaft worked a few feet into the rock, than a storm arose
that drove away their cutter, and kept them clinging with the tenacity
of despair to the half-fastened rod for three days and two nights, when
the wind fell and the sea calmed, and they were rescued, rather dead
than alive, numbed from their long immersion in the water, which rose
almost to their necks, and exhausted from want of food. And after the
lighthouse had been erected, the engineer and some of his men again
found themselves, as a paper in a bottle they had cast into the sea
revealed to those on shore, in a "most dangerous and distressed
condition on the Smalls," cut off from the mainland by the stormy
weather, without fuel, and almost at the end of their stock of food and
water--in which alarming situation they had to remain some time before
their friends could get out to their relief. Most sea-girt beacons have
their own legends of similar perils and fortitude; and the narratives of
the erection of the three great lighthouses of Eddystone, Inchcape, and
Skerryvore, which may be selected as the types of the rest, are full of
incidents as exciting as any "hair breadth 'scapes i' the imminent
deadly breach."
About fourteen miles south from Plymouth, and ten from the Ram's Head,
on the Cornish coast, lies a perilous reef of rocks, against which the
long rolling swell of the Atlantic waves dashes with appalling force,
and breaks up into those swirling eddies from which the reef is
named--the Eddystone. Upon these treacherous crags many a gallant vessel
has foundered and gone down within sight of the shore it had scarcely
quitted or was just about to reach; and situated in the midst of a much
frequented track, the rapid succession of calamities at the Eddystone
was not long in awakening men's minds to the necessity of some warning
light. The exposure of the reef to the wild fury of the Atlantic, and
the small extent of the surface of the chief rock, however, rendered the
construction of a lighthouse in such a situation a work of great and (as
it was long considered) insuperable difficulty. The project was long
talked of before any one was found daring enough to attempt the task;
and when at length in 1696 Henry Winstanley stepped forward to undertake
it, he might have been thought of all others the very last from whose
brain so serious a conception would have emanated. The great hobby of
his life had been to fill his house at Littlebury, in Essex, with
mechanical devices of the most absurd and fantastic kind. If a visitor,
retiring to his bedroom, kicked aside an old slipper on the floor,
purposely thrown in his way, up started a ghost of hideous form. If,
startled at the sight, he fell back into an arm chair placed temptingly
at hand, a pair of gigantic arms would instantly spring forth and clasp
him a prisoner in their rude embrace. Tired of these disagreeable
surprises, the astonished guest perhaps took refuge in the garden, and
sought repose in a pleasant arbour by the side of a canal; but he had
scarcely seated himself, when he found himself suddenly set adrift on
the water, where he floated about till his whimsical host came to his
relief. Such was the man who now entered upon one of the most formidable
engineering enterprises in the world.
Although Winstanley's lighthouse was but a slight affair compared with
its successors, it occupied six years in the erection--the frequent
rising of the sea over the rock, and the difficulty and danger of
passing to and from it greatly retarding the operations, and rendering
them practicable only during a short summer season. For ten or fourteen
days after a storm had passed, and when all was calm elsewhere, the
ground-swell from the Atlantic was often so heavy among these rocks that
the waves sprang two hundred feet, and more, in the air, burying the
works from sight. The first summer was spent in boring twelve holes in
the rock, and fixing therein twelve large irons as a holdfast for the
works that were to be reared. The next season saw the commencement of a
round pillar, which was to form the steeple of the tower, as well as
afford protection to the workmen while at their labours. When Winstanley
bade farewell to the rock for that year, the tower had risen to the
height of twelve feet; and resuming operations next spring, he built at
it till it reached the height of eighty feet. Having got the apartments
fit for occupation, and the lantern set up, Winstanley determined to
take up his abode there with his men, in order that no time might be
lost in going to and from the rock. The first night they spent on the
rock a great storm arose, and for eleven days it was impossible to hold
any communication with the shore. "Not being acquainted with the height
of the sea's rising," writes the architect, "we were almost drowned with
wet, and our provisions in as bad a condition, though we worked night
and day as much as possible to make shelter for ourselves." The storm
abating, they went on shore for a little repose; but soon returning, set
to work again with undiminished energy.
On the 14th November of the same year (1698), Winstanley lighted his
lantern for the first time. A long spell of boisterous weather followed,
and it was not till three days before Christmas that they were able to
quit their desolate abode, being "almost at the last extremity for want
of provisions; but by good Providence then two boats came with
provisions and the family that was to take care of the light; and so
ended this year's work."
It was soon found that the sea rose to a much greater height than had
been anticipated, the lantern, although sixty feet above the rock, being
often "buried under water." Winstanley was, therefore, under the
necessity of enlarging the tower and carrying it to a greater
elevation. The fourth season, accordingly, was spent in encasing the
tower with fresh outworks, and adding forty feet to its height. This
proved too high for its strength to bear; and in the course of three
years the winds and waves had made sad havoc in the unstable fabric.
In November 1703, Winstanley went out to the rock himself, accompanied
by his workmen, to institute the repairs. As he was putting off in the
boat from Plymouth, a friend who had for some time before been watching
the condition of the lighthouse with much anxiety, mentioned to him his
suspicion that it was in a bad way, and could not last long. Winstanley,
full of faith in the stability of his work, replied that "he only wished
to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of the
heavens, that he might see what effect it would have on his structure."
And with these words he shoved off from the beach, and made for the
rock.
With the last gleams of daylight, before the night fell and shrouded it
from view, the tower was seen rising proudly from the midst of the
waters. Before the dawn it had disappeared for ever, and the waves were
lashing fiercely round the bare bleak ledge of the fatal rock. Poor
Winstanley had had his presumptuous wish only too fully realized. The
storm of the 26th November was one of the most fearful that ever ravaged
our shores. The whole coast suffered severely from its fury, and when
the morning came, not a sign remained of the lighthouse, architect, or
workmen, save a fragment of chain-cable wedged firmly into a crevice of
the rock. The disappearance of the warning light was quickly followed by
the wreck of a large homeward-bound man-of-war, and the loss of nearly
all her crew, upon the rocks.
This first Eddystone lighthouse was a strange, fantastic looking
structure, deficient in every element of stability, and the wonder was
not that it fell in pieces as it did, but that it was able to withstand
so long the boisterous weather of the Channel. But if of little merit as
an architect, Winstanley at least deserves respect, as Smeaton remarks,
for the heroism he displayed in undertaking "a piece of work that before
had been looked on as impossible."
For four years the Eddystone remained bare and untenanted, till, in the
summer of 1706, the erection of a new lighthouse was commenced under the
superintendence of John Rudyerd, by profession a silk-mercer in Ludgate
Hill, but by natural genius an engineer of considerable merit. With such
skill and energy did he apply himself to the work, that before two
summers were over his tower was completed, and its friendly light beamed
over the troubled waters and sunken crags. Rudyerd's lighthouse was
entirely of wood, weighted at the base by a few courses of mason work,
and 92 feet in height. In form, it was a smooth, solid cone of elegant
simplicity, unbroken by any of those ornamental outworks, which offered
the wind and sea so many points to lay hold of, in Winstanley's
whimsical pagoda. Smeaton speaks of Rudyerd's tower as a masterly
performance; and had it not been destroyed by fire, forty-six years
after its erection, there seems little reason to suppose it might not
have been standing to this day,--although no doubt the ravages of the
worm in the wood would have demanded frequent repairs. On the 2d
December 1755, some fishermen who happened to be on the beach very early
in the morning preparing their nets, were startled by the sight of
volumes of smoke issuing from the lighthouse. They instantly gave the
alarm, and a boat was quickly manned for the relief of the sufferers. It
did not reach the rock till about ten o'clock, and the fire had then
been raging for eight hours. It was first discovered by the light-keeper
upon watch who, going into the lantern about two o'clock in the morning
to snuff the candles, found the place filled with smoke. He opened the
door of the lantern into the balcony, and a mass of flame immediately
burst from the inside of the cupola. He lost no time in seizing the
buckets of water kept at hand, and dashing them over the fire, but
without effect. His two companions were asleep, and it was some time
before they heard his shouts for assistance. When at length they did
bestir themselves, all the water in the house was exhausted. The
light-keeper--an old man in his ninety-fourth year--urged them to
replenish the buckets from the sea; but the difficulty of lowering the
buckets to such a depth, and their confusion and terror at the sudden
catastrophe and their impending fate, destroyed their presence of mind,
and rendered them quite powerless. The old man did his best to prevent
the advance of the flames; but, exhausted by the unavailing labour, and
severely injured by the melting lead from the roof, he had to desist. As
the fire spread from point to point, with rapid strides descending from
the summit to the base, the poor wretches fled before it, retreating
from room to room, till at last they were driven to seek shelter from
the blazing timbers and red hot bars, in a cleft of the rock. There they
were found by their preservers, crouching together half dead with
suffering and fright. It was with the greatest difficulty that they were
got into the boat; and they had no sooner reached the shore than one of
them, crazed by the terrors he had undergone, ran away, and was never
heard of more. The old man lingered on for a few days in great agony,
and died from the injuries he had received.
Such was the fate of the second lighthouse on the Eddystone,--one
element revenging, as it were, the conquest over another.
In spite of the fatality which seemed to attend these lighthouses,
the lessees of the Eddystone--for it was then in private hands, and
did not come into the hands of the Trinity House till many years
after--resolved to make another attempt; and this time they selected as
the architect one of the ablest professional men of the day, and with
sagacious liberality, adopted his advice to build it of stone and
granite.
Smeaton truly belonged to the class of heaven-born engineers. From his
earliest years the bent of his genius unmistakably revealed itself.
Before he was six years old, he one day terrified his parents by
climbing to the top of a barn to fix up some contrivance he had put
together, after the fashion of a windmill; and another time he
constructed a pump that raised water, after watching some workmen
sinking one. And as he grew older, his efforts took a more ambitious
range, and were all equally remarkable for their originality and
success. His father destined him for the bar; but his inclination for
engineering was so irresistible, that he allowed him to resign all
chance of the woolsack, and set up in business as a mathematical
instrument maker. He gradually advanced to the profession of civil
engineering,--which he was the first man in England to pursue, and which
he may be said to have created.
It was in 1756 he commenced the construction of the great work which may
be regarded as the monument of his fame. Having decided that his
lighthouse should be of stone, the next point to be settled was its
form. His thoughts, he tells us in his book, instinctively reverted to
the analogy between a lighthouse shaft and the trunk of a stately oak.
He remarked the spreading roots taking a broad, firm grip of the soil,
the rise of the swelling base, gradually lessening in girth in a
graceful curve, till a preparation being required for the support of the
spreading boughs, a renewed swelling of diameter takes place; and he
held that cutting off the branches we have, in the trunk of an oak, a
type of such a lighthouse column as is best adapted to resist the
influence of the winds and waves. Whether or not Smeaton arrived at the
form of his lighthouse, which has since become the model for all others,
from this fanciful analogy, its appearance rising from the rock presents
a strong resemblance to a noble tree stripped of its boughs and foliage.
Smeaton commenced the undertaking by visiting the rock in the spring of
1756, accurately measuring its very irregular surface, and in order to
ensure exactness in his plans, making a model of it. In the summer of
the same year he prepared the foundation by cutting the surface of the
rock in regular steps or trenches, into which the blocks of stone were
to be dovetailed. The first stone was laid in June 1757, and the last in
August 1759. Of that period there were only 431 days when it was
possible to stand on the rock, and so small a portion even of these was
available for carrying on the work, that it is calculated the building
in reality occupied but six weeks. The whole was completed without the
slightest accident to any one; and so well were all the arrangements
made, that not a minute was lost by confusion or delay amongst the
workmen.
The tower measures 86 feet in height, and 26 feet in diameter at the
level of the first entire course, the diameter under the cornice being
only 15 feet. The first twelve feet of the structure form a solid mass
of masonry,--the blocks of stone being held together by means of stone
joggles, dovetailed joints, and oaken tree-nails. All the floors of the
edifice are arched; to counteract the possible outburst of which,
Smeaton bound the courses of his stone work together by belts of iron
chain, which, being set in grooves while in a heated state, by the
application of hot lead, on cooling, of course, tightened their clasp on
the tower. Throughout the whole work the greatest ingenuity is displayed
in obtaining the greatest amount of resistance, and combining the two
great principles of strength and weight,--technically speaking, cohesion
and inertia.
On the 16th October 1759, the warning light once more, after an interval
of four years, shone forth over the troubled waters from the dangerous
rock; but it was but a feeble illumination at the best, for it came from
only a group of tallow candles. It was better than nothing, certainly;
but the exhibition of a few glimmering candles was but a paltry
conclusion to so stupendous an undertaking. For many years, however, no
stronger light gleamed from the tower, till, in 1807, when it passed
from the hands of private proprietors into the charge of the Trinity
House, the mutton dips were supplanted by Argand burners, with silvered
copper reflectors.
Imperfect, however, as used to be the lighting apparatus, the Eddystone
Beacon has always been a great boon to all those "that go down to the
sea in great ships," and has robbed these perilous waters of much of
their terror. We can readily sympathize with the exultation of the great
engineer who reared it, when standing on the Hoe at Plymouth, he spent
many an hour, with his telescope, watching the great swollen waves, in
powerless fury, dash against his tower, and "fly up in a white column,
enwrapping it like a sheet, rising at the least to double the height of
the tower, and totally intercepting it from sight." It is now more than
a hundred years since Smeaton's Lighthouse first rose upon the
Eddystone; but, in spite of the many furious storms which have put its
stability to rude and searching proof, it still lifts its head proudly
over the waves, and shows no signs of failing strength.