The history of lighthouses refers to the development of the use of towers, buildings, or other types of structures as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Premodern era Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since raising the fire would improve visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs and promontories, unlike many modern lighthouses. Excavation at Kuntasi on the coast of India has revealed a square watch tower with a ramp which would have originally been 10–12 meters, used to guide boats coming to Kuntasi from Rann of Kutch. The possibility of it being a lighthouse cannot be ruled out. If so, the lighthouse would date from about 2000 BCE.
Greek-Roman period According to Homeric legend, Palamedes of Nafplio invented the first lighthouse, although they are certainly attested with the Lighthouse of Alexandria (designed and constructed by Sostratus of Cnidus) and the Colossus of Rhodes. However, Themistocles had earlier established a lighthouse at the harbour of Piraeus connected to Athens in the 5th century BC, essentially a small stone column with a fire beacon.Elinor Dewire and Dolores Reyes-Pergioudakis (2010). The Lighthouses of Greece. Sarasota: Pineapple Press. , pp 1-5.
Lesches, a Greek poet (c. 660 BC), mentions a lighthouse at Sigeion in the Troad. This appears to have been the first light regularly maintained for the guidance of mariners.
Written descriptions and drawings of the Pharos of Alexandria provide information about lighthouses, but the tower itself collapsed during an earthquake many centuries after its construction in the 3rd century BC by the Greeks. The Tower of Hercules at A Coruña in Spain has a Roman core, and the ruins of the Dover lighthouse in England give insight into its construction; other evidence about lighthouses exists in depictions on coins and mosaics, of which many represent the lighthouse at Ostia. Coins from Alexandria, Ostia, and Laodicea in Syria also exist.
While the evidence provides insight into the exterior structure of these structures, there are many gaps in the evidence concerning less visible aspects of the structures. The remains at A Coruña and Dover help determine how each lighthouse structure functioned, though one must make some assumptions to determine how the structures beacons were illuminated. Presumably locally available fuels will have included wood and probably coal to keep a fire going continuously during the night, and there is a large chimney leading to the top room at the Tower of Hercules. The example from Dover has been converted at some stage into a simple bell tower for the adjoining church.
Lighthouse keepers may have added combustible liquids to reduce the expenditure on fuel and keep the light steady during gales, but little information exists in the literature from the time. It may also be possible that the light was protected from the wind by glass windows, and large mirrors may have assisted in projecting the light beam as far as possible. It is likely that lighthouses would have required considerable labour for transporting the fuel and maintaining the flame. At Cape Hatteras in the 1870s, one keeper and two assistants kept themselves busy by tending more sophisticated flames from powerful oil lamps.
While artistic representations assist us in re-creating a visual image of lighthouses, they present many problems. Depictions of lighthouses on Roman coins, inscriptions, carvings, and mosaics present an inconsistent view of the actual appearance of the structures. Most show a building with two or three stories that decreases in width as it ascends. The limited size of coins could cause the producer of the coin to alter the image to fit on the surface. The similarity in depictions of lighthouses is symbolic rather than accurate representations of specific beacons.
Europe
During the European Middle Ages, many Roman lighthouses fell into disuse. Some did remain functional, such as the Farum Brigantium, now known as the Tower of Hercules, in A Coruña, Spain, and others in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Lanterna at Genoa. As navigation improved, lighthouses gradually expanded into Western and Northern Europe.Crompton, Samuel, W; Rhein, Michael, J. The Ultimate Book of Lighthouses. San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay Press, 2002. One of the oldest working lighthouses in Europe is Hook Lighthouse, located at Hook Head in County Wexford, Ireland. It was built during the Middle Ages in a sturdy, circular design.
A century later, in the Late Middle Ages, a tower was built by Edward the Black Prince at Cordouan near the Gironde estuary. One hundred years later, in 1581, Henri III asked architect Louis de Foix to build a new one. Building the lighthouse took twenty-seven years and was finally completed in 1611. The tiered Cordouan symbolized French maritime power and prestige. The interior had sumptuous king's apartments, decorated pillars, and murals. Its upper level was rebuilt between 1780 and 1790, increasing the height from 49m to 60m and incorporating an Argand lamp and one of the first parabolic mirrors which was turned by clockwork developed by a clockmaker in Dieppe. The tower later became the first to use the revolutionary Fresnel lens, in the early 1820s.)
In Britain, lighthouses were privately owned, and the right to collect dues was by warrant, either from a local authority or the crown. The abuse of these licenses led to foreign ships fearing to seek refuge on the south coast of England for fear of being boarded with demands and to the loss of a number of ships, most notably the Dutch merchant ship Vreede in 1802 with the loss of 380 lives.
With the increasing number of ships lost along the Newcastle to London coal route, Trinity House established the Lowestoft Lighthouse in 1609, a pair of wooden towers with candle illuminants. Until the late 18th century, candle, coal, or wood fires were used as lighthouse illuminants. This was improved in 1782 with the circular-wick oil-burning Argand lamp, the first ‘catoptric’ mirrored reflector in 1777, and Fresnel’s ‘dioptric’ lens system in 1823. The Nore lightship was established as the world's first floating light in 1732.
After the reforms of the Lighthouse Act 1836, by which Trinity House accepted powers to levy out the last private lighthouse owners and began refurbishing and upgrading its lighthouse estate, owners still managed to collect large dues, of which the largest were for the Smalls Lighthouse, which collected £23,000 in 1852, and Trinity House was forced to spend over £1m in buying back leases, including £444,000 for the Skerries Lighthouse.
Modern lighthouses Construction The modern era of lighthouses began at the turn of the 18th century, as lighthouse construction boomed in lockstep with burgeoning levels of transatlantic commerce. Advances in structural engineering and new and efficient lighting equipment allowed for the creation of larger and more powerful lighthouses, including ones exposed to the sea. The function of lighthouses shifted toward the provision of a visible warning against shipping hazards, such as rocks or reefs.
Eddystone lighthouse
The Eddystone Rocks, an extensive reef near Plymouth Sound, England, and one of the major shipwreck hazards for mariners sailing through the English Channel, The reef is submerged at high spring tide and was so feared by mariners that they often hugged the coast of France to avoid the danger, resulting in shipwrecks on the rocks of the north coast of France were the site of many technical and conceptual advances in lighthouse construction. The difficulty of gaining a foothold on the dangerous rocks, particularly in the predominant swell, meant that it was a long time before anyone attempted to place any warning on them.
The first attempt was an octagonal wooden structure, anchored by 12 iron stanchions secured in the rock, and built by Henry Winstanley from 1696 to 1698. The tower ultimately proved short-lived, and the Great Storm of 1703 erased almost all trace of it. Following the destruction of the first lighthouse, Captain Lovett .Later Colonel John Lovett (c. 1660-1710) of Liscombe Park Buckinghamshire and Corfe, (son and heir of former merchant in Turkey, Christopher Lovett, lord mayor of Dublin 1676-1677) and uncle of noted architect Edward Lovett Pearce 1699-1733. acquired the lease of the rock and, by Act of Parliament, was allowed to charge passing ships a toll of one penny per ton. He commissioned John Rudyard (or Rudyerd) to design the new lighthouse, built as a conical wooden structure around a core of brick and concrete. A temporary light was first shone from it in 1708 and the work was completed in 1709. This proved more durable, surviving until 1755, when it burnt to the ground.
The civil engineer, John Smeaton, rebuilt the lighthouse from 1756 to 1759;Majdalany, Fred: The Eddystone Light. 1960 his tower marked a major step forward in the design of lighthouses and remained in use until 1877. He modelled the shape of his lighthouse on that of an oak tree, using granite blocks. He pioneered the use of "hydraulic lime," a form of concrete that will set under water, and developed a technique of securing the granite blocks together using dovetail joints and marble dowels. The dovetailing feature served to improve the structural stability, although Smeaton also had to taper the thickness of the tower towards the top, for which he curved the tower inwards on a gentle gradient. This profile had the added advantage of allowing some of the energy of the waves to dissipate on impact with the walls.
Construction started at a site in Millbay where Smeaton built a jetty and workyard in the south-west corner of the harbour for unloading and working the stone. Timber rails of 3 ft. 6 in. gauge were laid for the four-wheeled flat trucks on which the masonry was moved around the site. A ten-ton ship, named the Eddystone Boat, was based here and took the worked stones out to the reef. The lighthouse was high and had a diameter at the base of and at the top of .
Further development
Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson was a seminal figure in the development of lighthouse design and construction in the first half of the 19th century. In 1797, he was appointed engineer to the newly formed Northern Lighthouse Board, the lighthouse authority for Scotland and the Isle of Man. His greatest achievement was the construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse in 1810, one of the most impressive feats of engineering of the age. This structure was based upon the design of the earlier Eddystone Lighthouse by John Smeaton, but with several improved features, such as the incorporation of rotating lights alternating between red and white.
Stevenson worked for the Northern Lighthouse Board for nearly fifty years during which time he designed and oversaw the construction and later improvement of numerous lighthouses. He innovated in the choice of light sources, mountings, reflector design, the use of Fresnel lenses, and in rotation and shuttering systems, providing lighthouses with individual signatures, allowing them to be identified by seafarers. He also invented the movable jib and the balance crane as necessary parts for lighthouse construction.
Stevenson established a great dynasty of engineers specializing in lighthouse construction; his descendants were responsible for most of the lighthouse construction in Scotland for a century. Three of Robert's sons followed in his path: David, Alan, and Thomas. Two of David's children, David Alan and Charles Alexander, also became distinguished lighthouse engineers in their own right.