ANCIENT METHODS OF LIGHTING
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.