A lamplighter or gaslighter is a person employed to light and maintain street lights. These included candles, oil lamps, and gas lighting.
Public street lighting was developed in the 16th century. [1] During this time, lamplighters toured public streets at dusk, lighting outdoor fixtures by means of a wick on a long pole. [2] At dawn, the lamplighter would return to put them out using a small hook on the same pole. Other duties include carrying a ladder and renewing the candles, oil, or gas mantles.
In some communities, lamplighters served in a role akin to a town watchman; in others, it may have been seen as little more than a sinecure.
Beginning with Frederick Albert Winsor's 1807 exhibition at the Pall Mall, [3] gas lights steadily overtook candles and oil lamps as the dominant form of street lighting. Early gaslights required lamplighters, but by the late 19th century, systems were developed which allowed the lights to operate automatically. The advent of incandescent lighting diminished the necessity of hiring lamplighters.
Lamplighting is not as prevalent in modern times.[ clarification needed ] However, certain cities maintain the tradition to attract tourism. These include Zagreb, Croatia; [4] Wroclaw, Poland; [5] and Brest, Belarus. [6]
In Brest, Belarus, as a tourist attraction, a lamplighter has been employed since 2009 to light the kerosene lamps in the shopping street every day. [6]
As of 2022, a small team of lamplighters operate in London, England where gas lights have been preserved by English Heritage. [7] [8]
In the European Union, there are two cities where lamplighters are still on duty: Zagreb, Croatia [4] and Wroclaw, Poland. [5]
In Waikiki, Hawaii, lamplighters in traditional Hawaiian costumes run along the shore and light gas torches in the evening.[ citation needed ]
In the late-19th and 20th centuries, most cities with gas streetlights replaced them with electric streetlights. For example, Baltimore, the first US city to install gas streetlights, removed nearly all of them in 1957. A gas lamp is located at N. Holliday Street and E. Baltimore Street as a monument to the first gas lamp in America, erected at that location. [9]
However, gas lighting of streets has not disappeared completely from some cities, and the few municipalities that retained gas lighting now find that it provides a pleasing nostalgic effect. Gas lighting is also seeing a resurgence in the luxury home market for those in search of historical authenticity.
The largest gas lighting network in the world is that of Berlin, Germany. With about 37,000 lamps (2014), [10] it holds more than half of all working gas street lamps in the world. In central London around 1500 gas lamps still operate, lighting the Royal Parks, the exterior of Buckingham Palace and almost the entire Covent Garden area.[ citation needed ] The Park Estate in Nottingham retains much of its original character, including the original gas lighting network.
In the United States, more than 2800 gas lights in Boston, Massachusetts, operate in the historic districts of Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Bay Village, Charlestown, and parts of other neighborhoods. In Cincinnati, Ohio, more than 1100 gas lights operate in areas that have been named historic districts. Gas lights also operate in parts of the famed French Quarter and outside historic homes throughout the city in New Orleans, Louisiana.
South Orange, New Jersey, has adopted the gaslight as the symbol of the town, and uses them on nearly all streets. Several other towns in New Jersey also retain gas lighting: Glen Ridge, Palmyra, Riverton, and some parts of Orange, Cape May, and Cherry Hill. The village of Riverside, Illinois, uses its original gas street lights that are an original feature of the Frederick Law Olmsted planned community. Manhattan Beach, California, has a gas lamp section in which all the sidewalks are lit by public gas lamps. Disneyland has authentic 19th century gas lamps from Baltimore along the "Main Street, U.S.A." section of the theme park.
Many gas utility companies will still quote a fixed periodic rate for a customer-maintained gas lamp, and some homeowners still use such devices. However, the high cost of natural gas lighting [11] at least partly explains why a large number of older gas lamps have been converted to electricity. Solar-rechargeable battery-powered gas light controllers can be easily retrofitted into existing gas lamps to keep the lights off during daylight hours and cut energy consumption and green-house gas carbon emissions by 50%.
In 1928, Irish poet Máirtín Ó Direáin published "Fear Lasta Lampaí" ("lamp-lighting man"). [12] [13] [14]
In 1942, American composer Hoagy Carmichael composed "Lamplighter's Serenade." It was recorded by Frank Sinatra during his first session as a solo artist, on 19 January 1942. Bing Crosby recorded a version of the song days later.
Additionally, the 1946 song "The Old Lamp-Lighter" was a pop song featuring music by Nat Simon and lyrics by Charles Tobias.
John le Carré's 1974 spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy refers to Lamplighters as a section of British Intelligence that provided surveillance and couriers. [15]
The 1975 Soviet film The Adventures of Buratino features a "Lamplighters' Song," in which a group of lamplighters perform ballet-inspired choreography while singing about their nightly duties. [16]
In 2013, New York (City) Police Department (NYPD) whistleblower Frank Serpico, an NYPD officer, prefers to use the term "lamp-lighter" to describe the whistleblower's role as a watchman. [17] [18]
In 2018, Jack the Lamplighter, portrayed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is a character in the film Mary Poppins Returns .
Stage lighting is the craft of lighting as it applies to the production of theater, dance, opera, and other performance arts. Several different types of stage lighting instruments are used in this discipline. In addition to basic lighting, modern stage lighting can also include special effects, such as lasers and fog machines. People who work on stage lighting are commonly referred to as lighting technicians or lighting designers.
An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc.
A lantern is a source of lighting, often portable. It typically features a protective enclosure for the light source – historically usually a candle, a wick in oil, or a thermoluminescent mesh, and often a battery-powered light in modern times – to make it easier to carry and hang up, and make it more reliable outdoors or in drafty interiors. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as torches, or as general light-sources outdoors.
A Yablochkov candle is a type of electric carbon arc lamp, invented in 1876 by the Russian electrical engineer Pavel Yablochkov.
Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov was a Russian electrical engineer, businessman and the inventor of the Yablochkov candle, a type of electric carbon arc lamp.
A chandelier is an ornamental lighting device, typically with spreading branched supports for multiple lights, designed to be hung from the ceiling. Chandeliers are often ornate, and they were originally designed to hold candles, but now incandescent light bulbs are commonly used, as well as fluorescent lamps and LEDs.
Pall Mall is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James's Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road. The street's name is derived from pall-mall, a ball game played there during the 17th century, which in turn is derived from the Italian pallamaglio, literally "ball-mallet".
A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, streetlamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution became ubiquitous in developed countries in the 20th century, lights for urban streets followed, or sometimes led.
Christmas lights are lights often used for decoration in celebration of Christmas, often on display throughout the Christmas season including Advent and Christmastide. The custom goes back to when Christmas trees were decorated with candles, which symbolized Christ being the light of the world. The Christmas trees were brought by Christians into their homes in early modern Germany.
Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a fuel gas such as methane, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, coal gas or natural gas. The light is produced either directly by the flame, generally by using special mixes of illuminating gas to increase brightness, or indirectly with other components such as the gas mantle or the limelight, with the gas primarily functioning to heat the mantle or the lime to incandescence.
The history of street lighting in the United States is closely linked to the urbanization of America. Artificial illumination has stimulated commercial activity at night, and has been tied to the country's economic development, including major innovations in transportation, particularly the growth in automobile use. In the two and a half centuries before LED lighting emerged as the new "gold standard", cities and towns across America relied on oil, coal gas, carbon arc, incandescent, and high-intensity gas discharge lamps for street lighting.
Charles Francis Brush was an American engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
A light fixture, light fitting, or luminaire is an electrical lighting device containing one or more light sources, such as lamps, and all the accessory components required for its operation to provide illumination to the environment. All light fixtures have a fixture body and one or more lamps. The lamps may be in sockets for easy replacement—or, in the case of some LED fixtures, hard-wired in place.
The Cincinnati Street Gas Lamps are a historic district in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Composed of more than 1,100 street lamps scattered throughout the city, the district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
An LED street light or road light is an integrated light-emitting diode (LED) light fixture that is used for street lighting.
The Bartlett street lamp was an economical type of lighting first patented and manufactured by J. W. Bartlett at 569 Broadway in Manhattan in New York City, in 1872. Bartlett claimed his street lamps cost less than a quarter of the $25 The New York Times had reported a competitor claimed they cost. The Times responded that the New York City Parks Department said that they actually paid more than that for each lamp, including the post and frame, that they used in parks, streets, and elsewhere. The city of Troy, New York used the lamps beginning in 1872 to replace older models when they wore out.
Solar street lights are raised light sources which are powered by solar panels generally mounted on the lighting structure or integrated into the pole itself. The solar panels charge a rechargeable battery, which powers a fluorescent or LED lamp during the night.
The Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York was a lighting and electrical distribution company organized in 1878. The company held the patents for the first practical incandescent electric lamp and electrical distribution system of incandescent electric lighting. They also held a patent for an electric meter to measure the amount of electricity used. The inventions were those of Albon Man and William E. Sawyer. They gave the patent rights to the company, which they had formed with a group of businessmen. It was the first company in the world formally established to provided electric lighting and was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.
Street lighting in Stockholm was a private affair for many centuries. The first known decree regarded lighting in Sweden is from 1697 and concerned Riddarholmen in Stockholm. A royal decree regarding public street lighting was issued in 1749 and asked property owners to keep lanterns lit during the dark months from dusk to midnight, with bright moon nights as an exception. Stockholm was a dark city, especially at night when the street lanterns were extinguished. People avoided walking on the city streets during the nighttime. The public street lighting in Stockholm became a communal task when gas lanterns and later on electrical lamps were introduced during the mid 1800s. The city contributed 97 lanterns which were placed on the city's buildings, on public places, by docks, and bridges.
Early street lights in New Zealand were first installed in major cities in the 1860s with Christchurch recording having 152 gas lamps throughout the city. With the shift to electric lights cities moved away from gas lamps and on to the incandescent lamps with the towns of Wellington (1889) and Reefton (1888) becoming the first cities in the southern hemisphere to have electric street lights. Other towns soon followed suit with the town of Brightwater adding five and Richmond adding ten street lights in 1911. During the mid 20th century a move towards fluorescent lamps was taken up. Pressing into the 21st century New Zealand likemuch of the industrialised world has been expanding the installation of LED lights, and have seen large savings. In modern times communities in New Zealand have turned their street lights off for multiple reasons including to save energy and to help protect local wildlife in particular the Westland petrel as well as reduce light pollution.
Famed police corruption–fighting figure Frank Serpico appeared before the New York City Council in 1997 and gave the same message he gave twenty- six years earlier as a "whistleblower" of police corruption (Serpico prefers the term lamplighter rather than whistleblower).