The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [13]
Thomas fitted several of his parabolic reflector lights around the New Town and then, mindful of the need for more business, contacted the Trustees for Manufactures in Scotland. His reflectors, it seemed, had practical applications beyond mere street lighting; would they, enquired Thomas, be useful for lighthouses? As Thomas explained it to them,
Lamps being Inclosed are preserved from the Violence of the wind and weather but Coal lights cannot be inclosed…Lamp light of itself has a more pure and bright flame than Coal light and when Conjoined with a reflector of proper power transcends it ixceedingly and is seen at a much greater distance…Lamps take less attendance…Lamp lights with reflectors can be distinguished from every Other light in Such a manner as to make it Impossible to mistake them for a light on shore or on board any Other Ship…Coal lights are not capable of this Improvement.
He had, he declared, already prepared a sample reflector and was happy to demonstrate it to ‘any gentleman concerned’. The Trustees inspected his work, and agreed that Thomas’s designs would indeed be useful. Beguiled by his enthusiasm, they sent him south to gain experience from an English lighthouse builder. Once returned, he was made first engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Trust.
The title might have been imposing; the organisation itself was not. The Trust (now the Northern Lighthouse Board, or NLB) had been established after complaints about the state of the Scottish coast had reached boiling point. Several evil-tempered storms during the winter of 1782 had crippled both the naval and the merchant fleets, both of whom urgently petitioned Parliament to remedy the existing situation. Parliament set up a committee which recommended the construction of at least four lighthouses, scattered at vital points around the Scottish coast. In 1786, the bill was passed and the NLB was born. The Act for Erecting Certain Lighthouses in the Northern Parts of Great Britain provided for a management committee and a few officials to collect revenue, stipulated the sites of each light and then left the Board to its own devices. With its leaden cargo of sheriffs, judges and public goodbodies, the committee had only the most feeble knowledge of the sea and none at all about lighthouse construction. The Lighthouse Commissioners, as they were known, had been selected with the intention of providing political and financial canniness to the Board; as public officials, they were accustomed to question the cost of everything and trust the value of nothing. Their appointment was also partly political. Since the lighthouses would be built within the sheriffs’ fiefdoms, it was easier to give each one a place on the Board than to woo them anew every time a light was to be built on their land.
From the beginning, therefore, there was a strict division of roles. The Commissioners figured and the Engineer built. The Commissioners respected the experience and integrity of the Engineer; the Engineer lived within the Commissioner’s restrictions. ‘I beg leave to acquaint you that I am willing to do every thing in my power to bring to perfection the plan proposed,’ wrote Thomas in September,