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Peter Williams. Lighthouses
CONTENTS
Illustrations. FIGURES
The Chance Family Tree
Key Characters
Prologue
Lighthouses – the untold story
British–French rivalry
The lighthouse – a tool of empire
CHAPTER 1. Lighthouse Illumination Before 1823
Optical glass
Early lighthouses and the catoptric illumination system
Trinity House and the British lighthouse system
The first lighthouse lenses
Science and the French lighthouse system
Fresnel’s dioptric lens
Cordouan lighthouse and the first dioptric lighthouse lens
CHAPTER 2. Science, Business and Society in Britain
The worlds of science and business
Learned institutions
Theories of light
The British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS)
CHAPTER 3. Complacency and Procrastination
Lens trials in Scotland and England
Parliament is called into action
Alan Stevenson’s visit to France
Britain’s first dioptric lighthouse lenses
The lighthouse Stevensons
French lighthouse manufacturers
Developments in the United States 1820–50
Michael Faraday and the 1846 Parliamentary Standing Committee
CHAPTER 4. Innovation and Industry
Chance Brothers – England’s greatest glassmakers
James Chance – natural philosopher and businessman
James Chance’s search for truth
Georges Bontemps and optical glass
Brewster visits Chance Brothers
The Crystal Palace
Chance Brothers’ first dioptric lens
The 1850s – a time of trial
Hi-tech in France and Britain – the case of the dioptric lens
CHAPTER 5. Breakthrough
The Royal Commission on Lighthouses, Buoys and Beacons 1858–61
Competing interests
James Chance’s work with the Commission
The Whitby lights – breakthrough
Wanted: an optical engineer
The Chance lighthouse works and the industrialization of glassmaking
Education and welfare
Capturing the back light – the dioptric mirror
Europa Point, Gibraltar: ‘an instance of care in design’
Peer recognition – James Chance’s paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers
The Brewster–Stevenson feud: a finale
Lighthouse illumination technology: take-off
CHAPTER 6. The Age of Magnificence
Lamps and light: in pursuit of the perfect flame
The electric spark
Group flashing lights and the mercury bath
Hyper-radial lenses
Ships’ lights and light vessels
Developments in France
The lighthouse – a tool of empire
CHAPTER 7. Lighthouses and the Route to the East
India – the jewel in the British crown
Lighthouses in the Cape Colony
The Red Sea route
The Suez Canal
Clippers and the Chinese tea trade
Australia and New Zealand – the wool route
Lighthouses and European rivalries in South-East Asia
Japan – lighthouses and a modernizing state
CHAPTER 8. Illuminating Europe and the Western Hemisphere
European home-trade lighthouses
The Baltic trade
Gustaf Dalén and the beginnings of automation
Emigrants to the New World
The Caribbean route
South America and the guano trade
The Panama Canal
The passing of the torch
Epilogue. Family, church and public life
150 years of glassmaking, 100 years of lighthouses
James Chance – his lighthouse legacy
Lighthouses today and tomorrow
Glossary
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
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Toby Chance is James Chance’s great-great-grandson and the grandson of Sir Hugh Chance, the last Chairman of an independent Chance Brothers. Born in England, he lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and runs an event managementcompany specializing in small business development and adventure tourism.
Peter Williams is the author of the best-selling book Beacon on the Rock (2001). He has served at sea and was the founder of the lighthouse enthusiast magazine Leading Lights, which he continues to work on as consultant editor. Peter maintains his interest in lighthouses as the Administration Officer of the World Lighthouse Society (www.worldlighthouses.org).
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In Ireland, the growth of a lighthouse authority can be traced back to a commission appointed by Queen Anne in 1704, though this commission did not have a remit for the whole of Ireland but only for certain lighthouses. The present Commissioners for Irish Lights, which now supervises the lights of the whole Irish coastline, traces its lineage from 1806 when the Ballast Board of Dublin was given jurisdiction over the lights of Ireland. When the 1836 Act was going through the British Parliament the sponsor, John Hume MP, intended that Trinity House be made the central lighthouse organization, but Irish and Scottish MPs were unwilling to see their national boards replaced by an ‘inferior’ English one so the status quo remained. That some commentators regarded Trinity House as inferior was a major bone of contention that led to a wholesale review of the British lighthouse system, with the appointment of a Royal Commission in 1858. It is also an indication that, by then, Trinity House had lost some of its credibility built up over centuries.
The Elder Brethren at Trinity House began to take an interest in lighthouse illumination from the 1770s. The first printed account of the topic is found in William Hutchinson’s Treatise of Practical Seamanship, published in 1777. Hutchinson understood the science of parabolic reflection, which was beginning to be used in some of the French lighthouses. He advocated circular lanterns for lighthouses with large plate-glass windows and narrow vertical bars so as not to obstruct the light. He urged that ‘no pains or expense should be spared to make lighthouses as perfect as possible’. In August 1777, Trinity House made its first foray into improved methods of illumination when it ordered a bizarre apparatus for their Lowestoft lighthouse and put out word that ‘the opinions of persons concerned in navigation be collected’. They discontinued the coal fire and fitted in its place a glass lantern 7ft (2.1m) high by 6ft (1.8m) in diameter, within which was a cylinder covered with 4,000 small mirrors reflecting the light from 126 oil lamps set around the perimeter. But it was totally impractical – there were too many lamps to look after and the sparkling light was dissipated in all directions. In 1787, after visiting the French coast to inspect the new lighthouses using Argand lamps and reflectors, Trinity House erected a temporary beacon at Blackheath in London, and a year later a powerful array was installed at the Portland lighthouse. It was at Portland that the first experiments were made with lenses to direct the light beam, leading to what eventually became the standard technology in lighthouse illumination.
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