#Life of a lighthouse keeper full#

“Sometimes even greater, in the case of Ida Lewis, who was one of America’s most famous keepers, when she was finally appointed keeper later in her life – because she was a keeper’s daughter to start with – she was the highest paid keeper of both genders in the USA.” “Just remember this over 100 years before women had the vote in the US, so it seems quite progressive, but as you read it was more about convenience but about actively trying to empower women to break through glass ceilings, but it was still pretty amazing.” If the husband passed away these women were appointed principal keepers and put in charge of these lighthouses, sometimes for decades… “There was a man called Stephen Pleasonton who was the superintendent of lighthouses around the USA and he actively championed widows taking over their late husbands’ jobs as lighthouse keepers. Although often it simply suited local authorities because women were considered good at maintaining property and having dedication, toughness and practical skills. There has been an odd egalitarianism involved with women taking care of lighthouses since the 1800 century, Riddell says. But around the world there were many others, so that took me on a journey.” “As I heard her story it made me wonder if there were other women as lighthouse keepers in New Zealand. The conditions were incredibly harsh Riddell says. He but drowned in 1855, with Hebden, the daughter of an English squire, taking over her husband’s role as a widow with three kids for about 10 years. Hebden emigrated to New Zealand in 1840 and married to George White Bennett, who took up the position of lighthouse keeper at Pencarrow Head, at Wellington Harbour in 1852. She was the only woman to ever hold the role of lighthouse keeper. The story of Kiwi woman Mary Jane Bennett (née Hebden) initially got her interested in collecting these stories.

“Of course when you read the stories it wasn’t all romance and love,” she says. It even shares stories of those who used flag signals to communicate out to sea and strike up romantic connections. Her new book Guiding Lightstells the fascinating stories of lighthouse women, many of whom operated in wild, remote locations around the world.

Riddell tells Jim Mora she has fantasised about living in a lighthouse herself - the romantic pull of living by the coast, saving lives, holed up with loved ones while braving the elements.

#Life of a lighthouse keeper full#

SMOM, International Master Mariner (retd.Listen to the full interview on Sunday Morning with Jim Mora David Barry on Flying Catamaran Demonstrates Generating Hydrogen From Wind Power.Jean-Pierre on Flying Catamaran Demonstrates Generating Hydrogen From Wind Power.Jean-Pierre on The Mortar Wreck: Oldest Surviving UK Shipwreck Near Dorset Coast.Goetz on The Mortar Wreck: Oldest Surviving UK Shipwreck Near Dorset Coast.Peter Wright on Hunger Stones Emerge as Extreme Drought Drops Water Levels of Rhine & Other European Rivers.Perhaps we should add “mad as a lighthouse keeper” to the lexicon. They were being poisoned by the lighthouse itself. The solitude was not driving the lighthouse keepers mad. Like the hatters of their day, the light house keepers were being driven mad by exposure to mercury fumes. Those involved in the manufacture of hats in the 18th and 19th centuries also suffered from mercury poisoning, becoming as “ mad as a hatter” as the old saying went. One of the symptoms of mercury poisoning can be the onset of madness. Though not understood at the time, mercury is a deadly poison. When dust, dirt or other impurities built up in the mercury, part of the light house keeper’s job was to strain the mercury through a fine cloth. The best near zero-friction bearing of the day was created by floating the light and the lens on a circular track of liquid mercury. For rotating lights, just as importance as the strength of the light, however, was maintaining a specific speed of rotation, so that if the chart said that the light flashed every twenty seconds, the light, in fact, rotated so that the light was visible every twenty seconds. The lenses developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel greatly increased the intensity and range of the lighthouse beacon. It turns out it was something simpler and more sinister.įresnel lenses were the great lighthouse innovation of the 19th century. Many assumed that they went mad from solitude and the demands of the job. In the 19th century, lighthouse keepers had a high frequency of madness and suicide. It turns out that lighthouse keepers had more to worry about than simply storms and terrible conditions. We recently posted about three killer lighthouses.