Newsletter 212 November 2018
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The Furniture History Society Newsletter 212 November 2018 In this issue: George Seddon and his Pioneering Role in Lighthouse Illumination | Society News | A Tribute | Future Society Events | Occasional and Overseas Visits | Research | Other Notices | Book Reviews | Reports on the Society’s Events | Publications | Grants George Seddon and his Pioneering Role in Lighthouse Illumination ntil the early modern period, coastal Trinity House. 1 They were lit by tallow Ulighting was haphazard at best and candles, primitive oil lamps or coal fires. non-existent at worst. Local shipping Coal fires were more visible than the hugged the shore, and in the daytime flicker of candles or lamps, but were not mariners could steer a course using groups without their drawbacks, ‘now shooting of cliff-top trees, prominent church spires up in high flames, again enveloped in and other characteristic features of the dense smoke, and never well seen when landscape. Navigating at night was most required’. 2 Furthermore, coal fires extremely hazardous, though efforts were were occasionally confused with the light made to provide some form of primitive of industrial installations such as lime lighting such as swape lights, where a kilns, luring ships to disaster. basket of lit fuel was swung from a pole at It was the poor condition of the upper a cliff edge or a fire burned in a brazier on Lowestoft lighthouse that finally a cliff top or on a purpose-built tower. galvanized Trinity House into taking However, as trade and shipping began to action. Lowestoft is situated on the proliferate, it became imperative to find a extreme easternmost point of the British more reliable method of marking Isles, and there had been a pair of leading dangerous shallows or reefs. lights here since 1609 , enabling the rapidly In 1776 , the Corporation of Trinity expanding coal traffic from the North East House of Deptford Strond, the English and to London to steer a course. They are Welsh lighthouse authority since 1566 , thought to be the first lighthouses erected embarked on a project to develop a new and managed by Trinity House. 3 The lighting system in which George Seddon failure of either of them, particularly the (c. 1727 –1801 ), cabinet-maker of upper light, was potentially serious for the Aldersgate Street, London, played an treacherous navigation of this part of the integral role. By this date, there were about coast, and it was decided to experiment twenty lighthouses round the English with reflector lights as a possible coast, though none round the coast of replacement for the coal fire. 4 Scotland. About half were owned and Two attempts had been made, managed by Trinity House, while the rest independent of Trinity House, to intensify were privately owned or leased from the feeble light of oil lamps by using 2 furniture history society newsletter, no. 212, november 2018 reflectors. In 1763 and 1764, Captain 18 inches away from the hexagonal William Hutchinson, Liverpool cylinder, well clear of the mirrored Dockmaster, installed reflector lights at reflecting surface. Oil was conveyed to it Leasowe and Hoylake lighthouses on the from a reservoir in the centre of the Wirral coast,5 while Ezekiel Walker, natural reflecting cylinder via six pipes that philosopher, designed reflector lights for passed through the intersections of each the privately owned Hunstanton segment of the hexagon. Set into the wheel lighthouse in early 1777.6 were a series of small tubes, each Both used conical-shaped reflectors in containing a cotton wick, the lower end of the form of a parabola, known to which soaked up the oil, referred to as concentrate the light source into a lamps or burners. Furthermore, the powerful straight beam, but in order to concept also included a new style of exploit this characteristic it was necessary lantern. Earlier lanterns generally had to place the light source in the focus of the thick masonry or timber mullions and parabola, well back from the mouth of the small latticed windows obscuring much of cone. However, the smoke from primitive the light within. In contrast to this, James oil lamps then in use quickly blackened designed a lantern using large plates of the surface, rendering the reflectors glass held in place by small section copper virtually useless. In an attempt to avoid glazing bars and covered by a pitched this, Hutchinson placed the burners clear copper roof, with a fan to allow dispersal of the mouth of the cone, while Walker of heat and smoke. It was described as ‘a used burners with very small wicks but glass lanthorn’, for the same reason the placed in the correct position. Although Great Exhibition building of 1851 was these solutions may have obviated the described as ‘the Crystal Palace’, to problem to some extent, the full potential emphasize the overall impression of of the parabolic reflector would have been lightness and airiness. The lantern was 7 largely lost. feet high and 6 feet in diameter.7 It must have been for this reason that At this period there were no specialist the Elder Brethren of Trinity House constructors of lighthouse equipment, and commissioned one of their own members, local artisans provided most Captain Michael James, to design a requirements, such as fire grates. Indeed, completely different apparatus from an entry in the cashbook for the period scratch. His concept involved a copper records payment of £55 1s 3d to Willson cylinder, 4 feet high and 3 feet in diameter, (sic), a smith, for a lantern to enclose the consisting of six rectangular panels Lowestoft reflector.8 However, it seems arranged as a hexagon. These panels were likely, given the novelty of the design, that covered with 4,000 pieces of mirror glass, Trinity House felt the need for something each an inch square. The light source came altogether more sophisticated, and turned from a circular hollow tube, or wheel as instead to George Seddon to make the it was usually referred to, placed about whole thing. furniture history society newsletter, no. 212, november 2018 3 Seddon’s firm was the largest furniture oil will be equal to three chaldrons of coal. manufacturer in London during the last The whole is upwards of a ton weight. It has been lighted up several times, and the quarter of the eighteenth century. It effect is amazingly grand.11 operated out of a two-acre site in Aldersgate Street and employed 400 In the middle of June 1778, the whole ‘cabinet-makers, wood-carvers, gilders, thing was erected on a temporary scaffold mirror-workers, upholsterers, brass- close to the upper Lowestoft lighthouse founders […] and locksmiths’. There was and its coal fire for purposes of also a basement where mirrors were cast comparison, where it ‘was found to and polished.9 All this must have made answer beyond conception, exhibiting a George Seddon an attractive choice of globe of fire of a steady and most vivid 12 contractor, able to provide a variety of brightness’. In July, it was moved onto skills transferable to the lighthouse service. the lighthouse itself and could be seen Furthermore, it seems evident that he from a distance out to sea of 7 leagues contributed more to the new lighting (about 24 miles), whereas the range of the apparatus than merely building it from a coal light was less than 5 leagues (about 13 specification, because he was paid for 17½ miles). Such was the interest ‘experiments’ as well as ‘for making a generated that a full description, together reflector & lanthorn (and models thereof) with an illustration, appeared in Town and & fixing at Lowestoft’.10 Country Magazine for August 1778. It was The apparatus was complete by May written by Thomas Hunt, who was 1778 when the following notice appeared probably a Lowestoft resident. in the press: It seems that Seddon came to think of the reflecting apparatus as his personal A very ingenious contrivance has been achievement. At the end of 1778, a letter lately finished at a Cabinet-maker’s in Aldersgate Street, as a substitute for fire arrived at Trinity House from the office of placed on the top of a light-house: it the Attorney General to inform them ‘that consists of a large lanthorn, the frame- application has been made for a patent for work of which is made of iron and brass, a cylinder to multiply and reflect light, and covered with copper, over which is fixed a fane; the frame is glazed with which if not opposed will pass of course’. large panes of plate-glass. In the centre of Although Seddon is not mentioned by the lantern is a hollow cylinder, as a name, it seems inconceivable that it could reservoir for oil, which flows from thence through several horizontal tubes, which be anyone else. The Corporation’s solicitor support a circular one at mid-distance of was instructed ‘to take the proper the lantern and cylinder, in which last measures to oppose the said patent’.14 This tube are contained a great many burners: the front of the cylinder is covered with refers to what was called a caveat hearing, small square mirrors, fixed close to each whereby an objection could be lodged and other, by which means such magnificent the case heard by the Attorney General light is reflected as will (it is supposed) be who, in this instance, clearly came down in seen twenty miles at sea. A very considerable expence will be saved by the favour of Michael James and Trinity House above contrivance as, it is said, a gallon of and no more was heard of the patent.15 4 furniture history society newsletter, no.