Robert Oke, H.M. (23 September 1794 – 18 October 1870) was the first chief inspector for the Newfoundland Lighthouse Service and served from at least 1848 to 1870. Oke installed the first light mechanism (from Bell Rock Lighthouse) at the Cape Bonavista Light in 1842, and installed the famous Isle of May light mechanism at the Cape Pine Light in 1850, which was later moved to Harbour Grace Island and finally to Cape Bonavista, where it can be viewed today.
Early life Robert Oke was born 23 September 1794 in England to John Whitehead Oke (1751–1805) and his second wife, Edith Cogan (1766–1842) of Taunton, Somerset.
The Oke family were well established in Sherborne, England, residing there for at least three centuries, primarily in The Green (upper end of Cheap Street), at Barton Farm (Kitt Hill, aka Kithill), at Newland House (now "The Manor House" and current location of the Town Council ), along Westbury Street at Primsley Manor in the vicinity of Knapped Hall (Knappid Hall) and by 1630 they were also well-settled in near-by Sturminster Newton. Several Okes served as governors and wardens of the Sherborne School, masters and submasters of The Almshouse of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist (which is still in use), and subwardens of Foster's School a Bluecoat school.
Several Sherborne landmarks bore the family name: water grist mills on the River Yeo (South Somerset) in Westbury, known from the 16th century as Oke's Mills, and two others at the lower end of South Street from the 17th century (other times known as St Andrews Mills or Middle Mill); and, Oke's Mill Bridge, which prior to the turnpike trusts was the primary crossing of the River Yeo for the north–south route to Dorchester.
Oke's grandfather, also Robert Oke (1723–1788), was a Sherborne constable, maltster and innkeeper who helped organize the annual Pack Monday Fair. Also a coach-master, he drove the stagecoach, New Fly, on a section of the route between London and Exeter and became the principle carrier between Sherborne and Bristol in the mid-to-late 18th century. His primary place of business in Sherborne was the Half Moon Inn from which he operated a coach service and supplied wine to the church and distributed beer. He also leased tenements in The Church House (Half Moon Street) and, from circa 1750 until his death, leased what is now Sherborne's oldest existing pub, The George Hotel on upper Cheap Street (its courtyard stood in what is now George Street), next-door to the former Hospice of Saint Julian.
Oke's father, John, was a coach-master and a waggoner (transported goods in a horse-drawn cart). After moving to Bath, Somerset, he became a corn merchant and had difficulty paying tax on the portion of Durnford property he inherited in Sherborne while trying to support his family of 5 young children and first wife, Dinah. John resumed paying land tax in Sherborne during his second marriage, when Oke was 5 years old, the year he was baptized (7 January 1799) at Sherborne Abbey (The Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin). By July 1805, John was ill and died in October (after Oke's 11th birthday). He was laid to rest at Sherborne Abbey, as had preceding generations of Oke family.
Oke's half-brother, Edward Langdon Oke (1775–1840), a corn merchant, migrated to Southampton and operated a business on High Street. He was elected to the Southampton town council (common council), appointed consul at Southampton for the Kingdom of Hanover by Prince Regent George IV in 1818, and was active in establishing the Hampshire Advertiser newspaper (previously the "Herald").
Oke's half-brother John Langdon Oke (1776–1812) joined the Royal Navy in 1790. He served aboard during the mutiny at Spithead (16 April to 15 May 1797) and as a master's mate on , under the command of Captain Charles John Moore Mansfield, apprehending French privateers along the Irish coast and blockading Swedish and Portuguese merchant ships. In 1803, he was aboard chasing the French corvette Bayonnaise in Finisterre Bay, Spain, and was on when it captured the Frisken in the Mediterranean on 7 May 1805. On 12 April 1807, heading out from Dover to return to , Lieutenant Oke and crew of the jolly boat went overboard, surviving 40 minutes in "a heavy sea" until rescued by a pilot boat. Lieut. Oke returned to service in 1807, briefly appointed to , then on HMS Loire under command of Alexander Wilmot Schomberg (24 February 1774 – 13 January 1850), when he sailed as far as 77° 30' N to protect the Greenland fishery. His first land post was with the Sea Fencibles, a naval militia (disbanded February 1810). He was appointed to command the La Moye signal station in Saint Brélade parish (Island of Jersey), where he died 1 March 1812.
Early career In 1811, Oke embarked for Burin in the British Colony of Newfoundland to work for the English company Spurrier, Jolliffe and Spurrier. The third partner in that firm, William Jubber Spurrier, Esq. was a member of one of Poole's leading Newfoundland merchant families who married Oke's cousin, Susan Oke. Her father, also named Robert Oke (1747–1810), was a freemason in the Durnovarian Lodge, Dorchester where he served as a commissioner for captured vessels. In 1789, Oke's uncle attended to the business of Samuel Spratt (a Poole merchant) in Mortier Bay on the Burin Peninsula. During Oke's youth, his uncle developed several partnerships: two firms engaged in the corn trade and in commission benefits (Graves, Oke and Co. in Southampton; Oke, Gaden, and Co. in Poole); an interest in the coal trade with Gaden, Aldridge and Adey; and was in business with John Jeffrey (–1822) in the firm Jeffery, Oke, and Blake. Jeffrey was a Member of Parliament for Poole (1796–1808) and its mayor in 1798. After uncle Robert died, his son, William Oke ( – 1857), became a burgess of Poole in 1818 and of Southampton in 1821. He served as a sheriff there in 1824, and was a liberal member of the Southampton town council (common council) and a magistrate for several years before becoming the 605th mayor of Southampton in 1831. An original owner of Oak Villa () now, 3 Grosvenor Square and one of the few villas still in use, and an owner of Grosvenor Mews, William Oke then served the rest of his career as Justice of the Peace during the reform instituted by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.
Oke worked in Burin, NL through the War of 1812, during a time when the Spurrier business was faltering from neglect and failure to diversify. Although the Newfoundland fishery benefited from the strong price of fish during the American War, prices plummeted at war's end. However, employment opportunities rebounded with development of seal hunting and increased demand for fish to supply Europe after The Battle of Waterloo and defeat of Napoleon. Back home in England, business options were less optimistic as Robert's older brother Edward was dealing with decreasing corn prices and the new Corn Laws enacted to stabilize the market. Town's such as Poole, whose economy was largely reliant on migratory fisheries and merchant companies such as Spurrier, had to contend with competition from America, France and Spain's expanded presence across the Newfoundland fisheries. By 1816 (the year without a summer) Oke was working in Little Burin as a boatkeeper (boat-keeper), a term for fishing enterprises that were independent of the large merchants. By 1819, he moved to the port of Harbour Grace in Conception Bay, which was expanding its shipbuilding, fishing and seal oil industries. Opportunities and resources for work were available but competitive and in 1822 Oke had to sue William Warford for encroachment to regain his ground.
By October 1827, Oke was performing customs duties in Harbour Grace. In the mid-19th century, packet boats transported mail, packages and passengers between Harbour Grace and Portugal Cove. One such packet boat, the Express, started service in August 1825 and by 1830 was commanded by Capt. Robert Oke. Although dangerous work, there were six packets, including Oke's, operating out of the area by 1832, the year he registered as captain of the Wave. The most notable cargo of the time was the corpse of Patrick Downing, who was publicly hanged in St. John's on January 5, 1834, for the murder of a schoolteacher, the teacher's son, and a housekeeper. The body was transported among passengers on a packet boat to Harbour Grace, where the crime occurred, then hung in chains, decomposing on a gibbet until disgusted citizens cut it down.
In his new home, Oke participated in civic duties. He served as one of two banner bearers on July 26, 1830, in the formal procession and ceremony to deposit a time capsule of coins and bottled newspapers into the cornerstone of the new courthouse building. The Harbour Grace Court House is the oldest surviving public building in Newfoundland and one of the National Historic Sites of Canada.
Oke joined the Conception Bay Free Masons Association in February 1832, continuing the family tradition of Freemasonry. At that time, Oke was also a donor to the "Harbour Grace Country Association of the Newfoundland and British North America Society for the Education of the Poor".
Lighthouse service and the English fishery Despite the major wealth from the colony being derived from cod and seal, there were no lighthouses protecting ships off the coast until the 19th century, making these industries dangerous for merchants and crew and unpredictably hazardous for everyday travelers commuting to Newfoundland outports.
As early as March 1831, there was a lighthouse structure manned by Oke on Harbour Grace Island, pre-dating the government funded structure that was erected in 1836 and that Oke manned when it was made operational on 20 November 1837. According to Molloy, "A mechanic by trade, Robert Oke was an excellent choice for the isolated lighthouse situated on the rocky island that lay just off the entrance to Harbour Grace harbor. For years, he had worked with several fish merchants in Harbour Grace and knew the coastal waters of Conception Bay very well."
In May 1842, Thomas Bennett, chairman of the Newfoundland Lighthouse Board, recruited Oke to superintend the installation of Cape Bonavista Light. The lighting apparatus was the second-ever revolving mechanism developed in Scotland, put in operation at the Bell Rock Lighthouse in 1811. It used parabolic reflectors to magnify the illumination of lamps fueled by sperm oil and alternated red and white light, a pattern designed for greatest effect by Robert Stevenson. The light sat 150 feet above the medium sea level and could be seen by ships within 18 nautical miles.
In February 1846, Governor John Harvey employed Oke, now a harbourmaster, to protect the English fishery. Oke took command of the armed schooner Caledonia, outfitted as a revenue cutter, from which he was to collect duty and supervise the trade in bait fish (prevent smuggling by the French) on the western coast under the provisions of the Pickled Fish Act. Oke's report of his experience was republished by the United States Senate in its deliberations on the rights of countries fishing along the North American coast. Oke held this position only through 1847 as the general consensus was that local communities were complicit and reliant on the sale of fish to the French, the Act having the unintended consequence of driving up the price paid.
By September 1848 Oke was serving as the first Chief Inspector for the Newfoundland Lighthouse Service. He worked from the newly built Colonial Building when he wasn't traveling for inspections or supervising installations on remote sites. According to Molloy, the board "needed someone who had a keen understanding of technology and an appreciation of the day to day operations of the lighthouses themselves."