Tag Archives: Lyster

The one o’clock gun, fifty years after

Liverpool’s One O’Clock Gun was fired for the last time on 18th July 1969. At one second before one o’clock, Sylvia Asquith flicked the switch at Bidston Observatory that caused the cannon to fire down at Morpeth Dock.

Firing the one-o-clock gun, 18 July 2019.

Fifty years later to the minute, Sylvia was present when the Royal Artillery (103 Regiment) fired a field gun, this time from the waterfront near Woodside Ferry Terminal.

Sylvia Asquith and the latest one o’clock gun, 18 July 2019.

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Turnberry

The “unknown Scottish lighthouse” in my last post is probably Turnberry.

Drawing of unidentified Scottish Lighthouse

Drawing of unidentified Scottish Lighthouse

The drawing was found in a box of plans in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board collection at the Merseyside Maritime Museum Archives. The handwritten annotation reads “George F. Lyster Esq. with the compliments of D. &. T. Stevenson, Edin. 10 April 1871”.

Several lighthouses designed by David and Thomas Stevenson have the lighthouse tower connected to a two-story accommodation block, but the only one where the positions of the windows and chimneys match those in our drawing is Turnberry. I have not been able to find any photographs of Turnberry Lighthouse taken from a vantage point looking directly towards the tower (as in the elevation in the right of the drawing). Perhaps it’s just not possible to stand in the right place to take such a photograph.

Fortunately, Little Dart have a nice model of Turnberry Lighthouse, in their Northern Lighthouse Board collection.

Turnberry Lighthouse, model by Little Dart. Image courtesy littledart.co.uk

Turnberry Lighthouse, model by Little Dart. Image courtesy littledart.co.uk

At the time when the Stevenson brothers sent the drawing to George F. Lyster, Turnberry Lighthouse was still under construction, and Lyster had not yet drawn up his plans for the re-build of Bidston Lighthouse. Turnberry was first lit in 1873.

Today, Turnberry Lighthouse is still operated by the Northern Lighthouse Board, while the accommodation is part of Donald Trump’s empire. I can’t afford to stay there. The building has been altered since the Little Dart model was made.

Stephen

Postscript

This photograph of Turnberry Lighthouse is taken from a different angle, but shows the distinctive locations of the windows in the lighthouse tower and the chimneys of the accommodation. Thanks @NLB_UK.

Turnberry Lighthouse, photo courtesy NLB

Turnberry Lighthouse, photo courtesy NLB

Memorandum to George F. Lyster

Our latest acquisition is this memorandum from the Secretary of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board to George F. Lyster, the man who built Bidston Lighthouse and Bidston Observatory (and many other important buildings and docks).

MDHB memo to G.F. Lyster, 1889

MDHB memo to G.F. Lyster, 1889

The memorandum is dated 15 April 1889. In red ink, initialled by GFL, there is a brief instruction addressed to AGL. At the foot of the memo there is a longer reply to the secretary, initialled by AGL.

GFL is George Fosbery Lyster (1821-1899), then Engineer-in-Chief to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. AGL is his 37-year old son, Anthony George Lyster (1852-1920).

The following year, Anthony became Acting Engineer-in-Chief to the MDHB. He eventually succeeded his father as Engineer-in-Chief when George retired in 1897. This memo shows that the father was already in the habit of delegating to his son in 1889.

Between them, George Fosbery Lyster and Anthony George Lyster probably added more acreage to the docks of Liverpool and Birkenhead than their predecessors Jesse Hartley and his son John Bernard Hartley.

We are delighted to have this sample of the handwriting of both father and son in a single document.

 

St. Bees

Yesterday, I posted this drawing of an unidentified lighthouse, and appealed to Twitter and Facebook for help in identifying it.

Plan and elevations of unknown lighthouse, 1871.

Plan and elevations of unknown lighthouse, 1871.

The drawing shows a site plan along with front and side elevations. We found it several years ago in a box containing plans of Bidston Lighthouse in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board collection at the Merseyside Maritime Museum Archives. It is signed and dated Jas. N. Douglass, 5th April 1871. If my reading of the signature is correct, then the architect would be the famous James Nicholas Douglass F.R.S. who built many important lighthouses for Trinity House, including the fourth Eddystone Lighthouse.

Today, the mystery is solved, thanks to social media.

Facebook user Steve Kean was the first to identify the lighthouse correctly. It is St. Bees Lighthouse in Cumbria.

Then Jay Gates found an aerial view that clinched the matter.

Aerial view of St Bees Lighthouse from the Visit Cumbria website

Aerial view of St Bees Lighthouse from the Visit Cumbria website

The distinctive kinks in the perimeter wall, the paths within the lighthouse compound, and the location of the buildings and outbuildings all match perfectly. Even the annotations “Fence Bank” on the drawing make sense once you realise that these describe features that are clearly visible in the aerial view. It’s astonishing how little St Bees has changed in 145 years.

A little research reveals that St Bees was re-built in 1865 (although, strangely, Trinity House’s page on St. Bees doesn’t mention this at all).

So how did a drawing of St Bees Lighthouse come to be filed in a box of drawings pertaining to Bidston Lighthouse in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board collection?

Here is one possible explanation. In 1871, George Fosbery Lyster, then Engineer-in-Chief for the MDHB, was planning a replacement for the first Bidston Lighthouse. He would have been aware of the new (1865) lighthouse at St Bees, and may well have written, one engineer to another, to his counterpart James Douglass at Trinity House requesting a drawing. Then Douglass’ office prepared a drawing, perhaps a copy of an existing drawing or perhaps a fresh one, which was signed off by Douglass and sent on to Lyster’s office. It may have inspired some aspects of Lyster’s own 1872 design for the new Bidston Lighthouse. The layouts of Bidston and St. Bees do have much in common, but Lyster gave Bidston’s cottages a third wing, as Bidston needed three keepers to look after the telegraph as well as the lighthouse. Then, it would be natural for Douglass’ drawing to be filed away with the rest of the Bidston papers, where it stayed until the MDHB collection was deposited in the archives many years later.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that James Douglass was the architect of St. Bees – he could have just signed off a copy of an earlier drawing by someone else. However, he had been Engineer-in-Chief of Trinity House since 1862, and even if someone else did draw up the plans for St. Bees, it was Douglass who was ultimately responsible.

I then turned to email, and wrote to Neil Jones at Trinity House, and to the Cumbria Archives Service (since they have some of the best on-line resources about St. Bees).

Then I went to bed.

Next morning, my inbox held a reply from Neil Jones confirming that the drawing is indeed of St Bees, and that it is most likely a tracing or copy of an earlier drawing.

At this point, I left my investigations for a pleasant Maritime Heritage conference. Proceedings started aboard the newly re-launched steamer the Daniel Adamson at Liverpool’s Canning Dock.

Reconnections Conference aboard the Daniel Adamson, 11 May 2016

Reconnections Conference aboard the Daniel Adamson, 11 May 2016

After lunch, the conference resumed at the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the very same building where we first found the drawing several years ago. Even as young Jamie Davies of the Ironbridge Institute was lecturing on the value of social media for heritage projects, my phone beeped to alert me of incoming email from Lesley Park at the Cumbria Archive Service, which said:

I can confirm that the plan attached to your email is indeed St Bees lighthouse. The plan matches exactly with modern site plans we have in our collection, and photographs of the front elevation confirm its identity.

There is plentiful historical information regarding the old St Bees lighthouse scattered around various collection we hold here and at Carlisle Archive Centre. However information and plans relating to the rebuilt lighthouse is held at our reference YGLA/1 and spans 1962 – 1989 only.

I have not seen the attached plan before and it is a delight to see it.

Although I can confirm the plan is definitely St Bees, I cannot throw any light on how the plan came to be where you found it, but your theory is quite plausible.

I cannot thank you enough for bringing this fascinating plan to our attention.

I barely managed to contain my excitement. I waited for the opportunity for questions at the end of the talk, determined to share my social media success story with the audience, whether they wanted to hear it or not. No such opportunity came, as we were running behind schedule. By the time of the closing discussion the moment had passed.

All of which leads me, at the end of a most pleasant day, to write this post. Needless to say, I shall share it on social media.

Stephen, at Bidston Lighthouse, with thanks to Michael Vicente (photographer) and my wife Mandy for finding the drawing in the first place; to Steve Kean, Jay Gates, Neil Jones at Trinity House, and Lesley Park at the Cumbria Archive Service for their help in identifying it; to the Daniel Adamson Preservation Society and the Maritime Heritage Trust for a great conference; to Jamie Davies for talking about social media at that particular time; and especially the Merseyside Maritime Museum for the parts it played at the beginning and the end of my story.