It is doubtful whether the name of any lighthouse is so familiar throughout the English-speaking world as the “Eddystone.” Certainly no other “pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day,” can offer so romantic a story of dogged engineering perseverance, of heartrending disappointments, disaster, blasted hopes, and brilliant success.
Standing out in the English Channel, about sixty miles east of the Lizard, is a straggling ridge of rocks which stretches for hundreds of yards across the marine thoroughfare, and also obstructs the western approach to Plymouth Harbour. But at a point some nine and a half miles south of Rame Head, on the mainland, the reef rises somewhat abruptly to the surface, so that at low-water two or three ugly granite knots are bared, which tell only too poignantly the complete destruction they could wreak upon a vessel which had the temerity or the ill luck to scrape over them at high-tide. Even in the calmest weather the sea curls and eddies viciously around these stones; hence the name “Eddystones” is derived.
From the days when trading vessels first used the English Channel the reef has been a spot of evil fame. How many ships escaped the perils and dangers of the seven seas only to come to grief on this ridge within sight of home, or how many lives have been lost upon it, will never be known. Only the more staggering holocausts, such as the wreck of the Winchelsea, stand out prominently in the annals of history, but these serve to emphasize the terrible character of the menace offered. The port of Plymouth, as may be supposed, suffered with especial severity.
As British overseas traffic expanded, the idea of indicating the spot for the benefit of vessels was discussed. The first practical suggestion was put forward about the year 1664, but thirty-two years elapsed before any attempt was made to reduce theory to practice. Then an eccentric English country gentleman, Henry Winstanley, who dabbled in mechanical engineering upon unorthodox lines, came forward and offered to build a lighthouse upon the terrible rock. Those who knew this ambitious amateur were dubious of his success, and wondered what manifestation his eccentricity would assume on this occasion. Nor was their scepticism entirely misplaced. Winstanley raised the most fantastic lighthouse which has ever been known, and which would have been more at home in a Chinese cemetery than in the English Channel. It was wrought in wood and most lavishly embellished with carvings and gilding.
Four years were occupied in its construction, and the tower was anchored to the rock by means of long, heavy irons. The light, merely a flicker, flashed out from this tower in 1699 and for the first time the proximity of the Eddystones was indicated all round the horizon by night. Winstanley’s critics were rather free in expressing their opinion that the tower would come down with the first sou’-wester, but the eccentric builder was so intensely proud of his achievement as to venture the statement that it would resist the fiercest gale that ever blew, and, when such did occur, he hoped that he might be in the tower at the time.
Fate gratified his wish, for while he was on the rock in the year 1703 one of the most terrible tempests that ever have assailed the coasts of Britain gripped the structure, tore it up by the roots, and hurled it into the Channel, where it was battered to pieces, its designer and five keepers going down with the wreck. When the inhabitants of Plymouth, having vainly scanned the horizon for a sign of the tower on the following morning, put off to the rock to investigate, they found only the bent and twisted iron rods by which the tower had been held in position projecting mournfully into the air from the rock-face.
Shortly after the demolition of the tower, the reef, as if enraged at having been denied a number of victims owing to the existence of the warning light, trapped the Winchelsea as she was swinging up Channel, and smashed her to atoms, with enormous loss of life.
Although the first attempt to conquer the Eddystone had terminated so disastrously, it was not long before another effort was made to mark the reef. The builder this time was a Cornish labourer’s son, John Rudyerd, who had established himself in business on Ludgate Hill as a silk-mercer. In his youth he had studied civil engineering, but his friends had small opinion of his abilities in this craft. However, he attacked the problem boldly, and, although his tower was a plain, business-looking structure, it would have been impossible to conceive a design capable of meeting the peculiar requirements of the situation more efficiently. It was a cone, wrought in timber, built upon a stone and wood foundation anchored to the rock, and of great weight and strength. The top of the cone was cut off to permit the lantern to be set in position. The result was that externally the tower resembled the trunk of an oak-tree, and appeared to be just about as strong. It offered the minimum of resistance to the waves, which, tumbling upon the ledge, rose and curled around the tapering form without starting a timber.
Rudyerd, indeed, may be considered to be the father of the science of modern lighthouse designing, because the lines that he evolved have never been superseded for exposed positions even in these days of advanced engineering science, greater constructional facilities, and improved materials. Rudyerd’s ingenuity and skill received a triumphant vindication when the American engineers set out to build the Minot’s Ledge and Spectacle Reef lighthouses, inasmuch as these men followed slavishly in the lines he laid down, and their achievements are numbered among the great lighthouses of the world to-day.
Rudyerd built his tower with infinite care, although he was harassed in his operations by the depredations of French privateers, who haunted this part of the British coast. On one occasion the whole of the men were surprised while at their work, and were borne off in triumph as prisoners of war to France. Louis XIV., however, heard of the capture, and the privateers, instead of being honoured for the catch, as they anticipated, were strongly reprimanded and compelled to release their captures. “Their work is for the benefit of all nations. I am at war with England, not with humanity,” was the Sovereign’s comment; and by way of compensation the prisoners were loaded with presents and reconveyed to the rock, to resume their toil.
For forty years Rudyerd’s structure defied the elements, and probably would have been standing to this day had it not possessed one weak point. It was built of wood instead of stone. Consequently, when a fire broke out in the lantern on December 4, 1755, the flames, fanned by the breeze, rapidly made their way downwards. The keepers were impotent and sought what refuge they could find under projecting crags below, as the lead which had been employed in construction melted into drops and rained down on all sides, so that the unfortunate men were exposed to another and more alarming danger. In fact, one man, while watching the progress of the fire, was drenched with a shower of molten metal, some of which, he declared, had entered his open mouth and had penetrated into his stomach. When rescued he was writhing in fearful agony, but his story was received with incredulity, his comrades believing that the experience had turned his brain and that this was merely one of his delusions. When the man died, a post-mortem examination was made, and the doctors discovered ample corroboration of the man’s story in the form of a lump of lead weighing some seven ounces!
No time was lost in erecting another tower on the rock, for now it was more imperative than ever that the reef should be lighted adequately. The third engineer was John Smeaton, who first landed on the rock to make the surveys on April 5, 1756. He was able to stay there for only two and a quarter hours before the rising tide drove him off, but in that brief period he had completed the work necessary to the preparation of his design. Wood had succumbed to the attacks of tempest and of fire in turn. He would use a material which would defy both—Portland stone. He also introduced a slight change in the design for such structures, and one which has been universally copied, producing the graceful form of lighthouse with which everyone is so familiar. Instead of causing the sides to slope upwards in the straight lines of a cone, such as Rudyerd adopted, Smeaton preferred a slightly concave curve, so that the tower was given a waist at about half its height. He also selected the oak-tree as his guide, but one having an extensive spread of branches, wherein will be found a shape in the trunk, so far as the broad lines are concerned, which coincides with the form of Smeaton’s lighthouse. He chose a foundation where the rock shelved gradually to its highest point, and dropped vertically into the water upon the opposite side. The face of the rock was roughly trimmed to permit the foundation-stones of the tower to be laid. The base of the building was perfectly solid to the entrance level, and each stone was dovetailed securely into its neighbour.