July 19, 1869
Masonry construction was completed on a new lighthouse in the Celtic Sea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. This took place nearly five years after William Douglass, the engineer supervising the project, laid the first stone of the structure.
This lighthouse is located on a rock that is 18 nautical miles (33 kilometers) east of St Mary’s, an island of the archipelago known as the Isles of Scilly; and eight nautical miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Land’s End, a headland on the Penwith peninsula of England’s ceremonial county of Cornwall. The rock upon which the lighthouse stands has long been called Wolf Rock. This name is due to the widespread belief that fissures in the rock create howling sounds during gales in the region.
Wolf Rock Lighthouse was not the first navigational aid to be installed on the rock. In the early 1790s, a 20-foot (6.1-meter)-tall wrought iron daymark was set up on Wolf Rock by Henry Smith. A metal likeness of a wolf was affixed on top of this navigational aid. By 1795, however, Smith’s daymark was washed away. In the late 1830s, John Thurburn began work on a beacon on Wolf Rock. This beacon was completed in July 1840, but was wrecked in November of that year when storms washed away the structure’s pole and globe. A replacement beacon was put in place in 1842, but that was washed away in a storm two years later.
Civil engineer James Walker subsequently built a 14-foot (4.3-meter)-tall cone-shaped beacon on Wolf Rock. This beacon, which consisted of iron plates and was filled with concrete rubble, was completed in 1848. This navigational aid proved to be far more durable and remains in place there today. In 1860, though, Trinity House was granted the needed funds to build an actual lighthouse at that location. (Trinity House is the official authority for lighthouse in England, Wales, Gibraltar, and the Channel Islands.)
In 1862, William Douglass ultimately became the engineer in charge of constructing Wolf Rock Lighthouse. He brought to this project not only a wealth of expertise but also the sheer tenacity and intense attention to detail that helped define his prolific lighthouse-building career. He was frequently the first person to land on Wolf Rock and the last one to leave during each day of work there, for example. He also took it upon himself to make sure that safety lines were securely fastened to all of the workers. In addition, Douglass once risked his own life to maneuver a boat in stormy weather so that he could deliver supplies to workers who were stranded on the rock.
Following the completion of masonry construction on Wolf Rock Lighthouse, this tower was topped with a section for an innovative lantern. This lantern was designed by James Timmins Chance, an expert in lighthouse optics who worked for his family’s glassmaking firm Chance Brothers and Company.
This lantern, which had been on display at the 1867 Paris Exposition (Exposition Universelle), was considered to be a major upgrade in lighting technology at the time. The lantern’s key features included curved rather than flat glass panes and helical instead of straight glazing bars. Douglass described the mechanism as “probably the most perfect for the purpose that has yet been constructed.”
Wolf Rock Lighthouse first went into service in January 1870. Over the years, several other noteworthy technological changes have been introduced to the daily functions of this 135-foot (41-meter)-tall lighthouse. In 1904, an even more powerful source of light began operations with the installation of a Matthews incandescent oil burner.
Communications between Wolf Rock Lighthouse and the rest of the world were considerably improved in 1941, when this structure was equipped with a radiotelephone. After more than eight decades of relying on oil lamps, Wolf Rock Lighthouse was electrified in 1955. A diaphone fog signal was set up at the lighthouse during the early 1960s.
In 1973, Wolf Rock became the first lighthouse in the world to have its own helipad. The installation of this landing and takeoff area for aircraft made it significantly easier to transport lighthouse keepers to and from that rock.
The last keepers to serve at Wolf Rock Lighthouse left there on June 3, 1987. They were replaced by an automation crew. The lighthouse became fully automated in July of the following year.
Another one of Wolf Rock Lighthouse’s claims to fame involves literature. This lighthouse has a prominent role in the aptly entitled book The Shadow of the Wolf, a 1925 novel written by British author R. Austin Freeman and featuring fictional detective Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke.
(The accompanying image of Wolf Rock Lighthouse appears in George Henry Elliott’s 1875 book European Light-House Systems; being a report of a tour of inspection made in 1873 . . . illustrated, etc.)
Image Credit: Public Domain
For more information on Wolf Rock Lighthouse, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Rock_Lighthouse
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