THE NLB AND THE LIFE OF A LIGHTHOUSEMAN - The Lighthouse - page 5

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T HE NLB AND THE L IFE OF A
L IGHTHOUSEMAN
The seas around Scotland and the Scottish coastline itself have never been a place for
the faint-hearted mariner. On the north-western side, the coast faces the full force of the
North Atlantic winds and storms, although the islands of the Outer Hebrides act as a
breakwater to the mainland. Off the eastern coast, the North Sea gives rise to frequent
mists and fog such as the Haar 1 , which often can appear very quickly and affects ship-
ping and aircraft down on the lower eastern coasts of Scotland and northern England.
Prior to the full establishment of a system of lighthouses in Scotland, the appalling
number of shipwrecks and loss of life around the wilder parts of the Scottish coastline
left both seamen and those engaged in commercial trading to push for something to be
done, as the number of wrecks around the Scottish coastline ran into thousands upon
thousands and stood as a testament to the dangers faced by men who made their living
from the sea. The roll call of shipwrecks ran from the earliest fishing vessels up to and
beyond the oil tanker Braer , stranding in the Shetlands in 1993.
However, whilst there was no unnecessary unwillingness on the part of the gov-
ernment or local authorities to ease the plight of seafarers plying treacherous waters,
everything, as always, came down to money; who was going to pay for it? The actual
building or placing of lighthouse stations around Scotland's coast was a long and labori-
ousaffair,althoughcomparedtotheestablishmentofasystemoflighthousesinEngland,
it was completed in a shorter timescale, with the majority of the work being finished
within a century.
TheearliestlighthouseinScotlandwasbuiltontheIsleofMaybyJamesMaxwellofIn-
nerwick and John Cunninghame of Barnes, under a patent granted by Charles I in 1635.
The Isle of May lighthouse was bought from its then owners in 1814 and the present
lighthouse was built and illuminated from 1816.
The origins of the NLB go back to 1782 after a series of severe storms brought home
the lack of a proper lighthouse system around the coast of Scotland. The Commissioners
of Northern Lighthouses, as it was initally known, was created in 1786 following an Act