Sir James Nicholas Douglass | |
---|---|
Born | 16 October 1826 |
Died | 19 June 1898 71) | (aged
Nationality | English |
Occupation | civil engineer |
Sir James Nicholas Douglass, FRS (16 October 1826 – 19 June 1898) was an English civil engineer, a prolific lighthouse builder and designer, most famous for the design and construction of the fourth Eddystone Lighthouse, for which he was knighted. [1]
James Nicholas Douglass was born in Bow, London, in 1826, [2] the eldest son of Nicholas Douglass, also a civil engineer. After serving an apprenticeship with the Hunter and English company, he joined the engineering department of Trinity House, the United Kingdom's lighthouse authority.
Along with his brother William, James worked as an assistant to his father during the construction of James Walker's Bishop Rock Lighthouse in the Scilly Isles, earning the nickname 'Cap'n Jim' during the process. [3] After a brief period working for the Newcastle carriage builders R J & R Laycock, he returned in 1854 to assist in the lighthouse's final completion and to marry his fiancée Mary Tregarthen. [3] Trinity House then engaged him as Resident Engineer to design the Smalls Lighthouse off the coast of Pembrokeshire, his first solo project.
Douglass based his plans on the proven design of John Smeaton for the third Eddystone lighthouse, which had used dovetailed granite blocks for strength. [4] Douglass sourced his granite from the De Lank Quarries near Bodmin, Cornwall, and had it shipped to Solva on the Welsh coast where it was dressed (cut and shaped). The Smalls light was completed in 1861, at a cost of £50,125, and in a record-breaking time of two years. [5] Douglass immediately went on to supervise the construction of the Wolf Rock Lighthouse, designed by James Walker, and was appointed as Engineer-in-Chief of Trinity House in 1862.
Douglass's design for the Smalls light was a great success and he went on to design some twenty lighthouses for Trinity House, including some wave-swept towers which remain major engineering achievements, such as the Longships Lighthouse off Land's End. [6] Douglass's designs were also used in Sri Lanka. His brother William became the Engineer-in-Chief to the Commissioners of Irish Lights in 1878, serving in the post until 1900. [7]
The crowning achievement of James Douglass's career was the construction of the fourth Eddystone Lighthouse. Douglass was engaged to build a replacement for Smeaton's tower in 1877, and the new lighthouse was completed in 1882, the project being finished both without loss of life or serious injury and £18,745 under budget. [8] Douglass received a knighthood shortly afterwards for his services to engineering. He also carried out work on improving illumination using oil and gas burners and electricity.
In 1887 Douglass was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He retired in 1892, being succeeded as Engineer-in-Chief by Thomas Matthews, and died in 1898 at his home on the Isle of Wight. His youngest son Alfred also trained as a lighthouse engineer. [9] His eldest surviving son was William Tregarthen Douglass, [10] who gained a considerable reputation as a civil engineer in the construction of lighthouses.
Douglass was involved in a big public disputes with John Richardson Wigham. Wigham claimed that gas lights were superior to oil lamps, Douglass, then chief engineer to Trinity House, disagreed. In 1863 the Dublin Ballast Board funded Wigham's research and the new gas light was installed in the Baily Lighthouse, they then converted other lighthouses until Trinity House prohibited further conversion of lighthouses from oil to gas. After pressure from the Irish Parliamentary Party [11] In 1871 trials were conducted at the two Happisburgh Lighthouses comparing oil with gas. Douglass reported that "the large gas burner was ex-focal and therefore that it was totally useless and wasted". [12]
Douglass claimed that the design of "superposed lenses" at the Eddystone Lighthouse of 1882 were his. The same design "bi-form lens" was used by Wigham in the Galley Head lighthouse in 1877. There was a public dispute. Wigham had patented his design (Patent number 1015) in 1872. Wigham successfully sued Douglass for infringement of patent, and Douglass had to pay £2,500 to Wigham [13]
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Longships Lighthouse is an active 19th-century lighthouse about 1.25 mi (2.0 km) off the coast of Land's End in Cornwall, England. It is the second lighthouse to be built on Carn Bras, the highest of the Longships islets which rises 39 feet (12 m) above high water level. In 1988 the lighthouse was automated, and the keepers withdrawn. It is now remotely monitored from the Trinity House Operations & Planning Centre in Harwich, Essex.
The Eddystone Lighthouse is a lighthouse that is located on the dangerous Eddystone Rocks, 9 statute miles (14 km) south of Rame Head in Cornwall, England. The rocks are submerged below the surface of the sea and are composed of Precambrian gneiss.
The Knott family of lighthouse keepers is credited with the longest period of continuous service in the history of manned lighthouses, commencing in 1730 at South Foreland, Kent, with William Knott and ending in 1906 at Skerries with Henry Thomas Knott who died in 1910 having retired to Crewe. There are three famous lighthouse-keeping families in England, the other two being the Darling and the Hall families. The three families are inter-related.
The Bishop Rock is a skerry off the British coast in the northern Atlantic Ocean known for its lighthouse. It is in the westernmost part of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago 45 km (28 mi) off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the world's smallest island with a building on it.
Smeaton's Tower is a memorial to civil engineer John Smeaton, designer of the third and most notable Eddystone Lighthouse. A major step forward in lighthouse design, Smeaton's structure was in use from 1759 to 1877, until erosion of the ledge it was built upon forced new construction. The tower was largely dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe in Plymouth, Devon, where it stands today.
James Walker was an influential Scottish civil engineer.
Smalls Lighthouse stands on the largest of a group of wave-washed basalt and dolerite rocks known as The Smalls approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of Marloes Peninsula in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and 8 miles (13 km) west of Grassholm. It was erected in 1861 by engineer James Douglass to replace a previous lighthouse which had been erected in 1776 on the same rock. It is the most remote lighthouse operated by Trinity House.
The history of lighthouses refers to the development of the use of towers, buildings, or other types of structure, as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
St Anthony's Lighthouse is the lighthouse at St Anthony Head, on the eastern side of the entrance to Falmouth harbour, Cornwall, UK. The harbour is also known as Carrick Roads and is one of the largest natural harbours in the world.
Round Island Lighthouse, in the Isles of Scilly was designed by William Tregarthen Douglass for Trinity House and completed in 1887. At the time of building it was one of three lights in the Isles of Scilly, the others being the Bishop Rock and St Agnes lighthouse. The light was modernised in 1966, automated in 1987 and the island designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1995. It is now managed by the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, and except for the maintenance of the Grade II listed lighthouse, landing is not allowed.
John Richardson Wigham was a prominent lighthouse engineer of the 19th century.
Happisburgh Lighthouse in Happisburgh on the North Norfolk coast is the only independently operated lighthouse in Great Britain. It is also the oldest working lighthouse in East Anglia.
Cement Mills Halt was a railway station between Cowes and Newport on the Isle of Wight. It was a public railway station throughout its life, although principally used by workers at the cement works in Stag Lane. It was not included on public time tables but was available to ramblers visible enough on the primitive gas-lit platform to stop the train "on request". The trackway is now part of a national cycle route.
Wolf Rock Lighthouse is on the Wolf Rock, a single rock located 18 nautical miles east of St Mary's, Isles of Scilly and 8 nautical miles southwest of Land's End, in Cornwall, England. The fissures in the rock produce a howling sound in gales, hence the name.
William Tregarthen Douglass (1857–1913) was an engineer, from a lighthouse engineering family. He was a consulting engineer for lighthouse construction for several governments around the world. His father was Sir James Nicholas Douglass, and his uncle William and his grandfather Nicholas were also famous in lighthouse construction.
The Anvil Point Lighthouse is a fully-automated lighthouse located at Durlston Country Park near Swanage in Dorset, England. It is owned by Trinity House and currently operated as two holiday cottages.
Lowestoft Lighthouse is a lighthouse operated by Trinity House located to the north of the centre of Lowestoft in the English county of Suffolk. It stands on the North Sea coast close to Ness Point, the most easterly point in the United Kingdom. It acts as a warning light for shipping passing along the east coast and is the most easterly lighthouse in the UK.
Henry Norris (1816–1878) was a British civil engineer born in Poplar, London, the son of several generations of house carpenters. He was the resident engineer for lighthouse construction projects under contract to Trinity House from civil engineers Messrs. Walker & Burges, the firm of James Walker and Alfred Burges, and later on oversaw the building of Souter Lighthouse, the world's first lighthouse specifically designed & built to be powered by electricity.
William Douglass was for twenty-six years an engineer for Trinity House and engineer-in-chief to the Commissioners of Irish Lights from 1878 to 1900. He built a number of offshore lighthouses and was responsible for the design of the second Fastnet Rock lighthouse.