Shona Riddell - Guiding Lights: The Extraordinary Lives of Lighthouse Women

GUIDING
LIGHTS

The extraordinary lives of
lighthouse women

SHONA RIDDELL

PRAISE FOR SHONA RIDDELLS PREVIOUS BOOK,

TRIAL OF STRENGTH : ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES ON THE WILD AND REMOTE SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS

Beautifully illustrated, this is a fascinating story of unique plants and wildlife, wild weather and tenacious explorers.

Grass Roots magazine

Riddell writes in a way that will both engage people who know little of the islands and evoke a sense of place for those who have been there.

Otago Daily Times

kept me glued to the pages from beginning to end.

Booksellers NZ

Her richly illustrated book is a lively study of the ecological and human history of these wild but unquestionably fascinating places. Riddell has a gift of revealing the personalities who arrived willingly or otherwise on these remote shores.

The Listener magazine

'Every page of this delightful book brings a new story ... every photograph a feast for the senses.'

Nimrod: The Journal of the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School

What a great book a rich and fascinating human history.

Afloat magazine

A wonderful, wonderful book ... introducing us to a part of the world that many of us probably didn't even know existed.

ABC Nightlife

I was impressed and delighted ... a highly recommended read.

Grownups.co.nz

First published 2020

Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd
226 High Street, Dunedin, 9016, New Zealand
PO Box 864, Chatswood, NSW 2057, Australia
www.exislepublishing.com

Copyright 2020 in text: Shona Riddell
Copyright 2020 in photographs: as listed on

Shona Riddell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Except for short extracts for the purpose of review, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

A CiP record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Print ISBN 978 1 925820 62 1
ePub ISBN 978 1 77559 461 1

Cover design and internal concept by www.bookdesigners.co
Internal typesetting by Enni Tuomisalo
Typeset in Minion Pro, 10pt

Disclaimer
While this book is intended as a general information resource and all care has been taken in compiling the contents, neither the author nor the publisher and their distributors can be held responsible for any loss, claim or action that may arise from reliance on the information contained in this book.

For Richard, Ruby and Violet.
My beacons.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same Year after year, through all the silent night Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame, Shines on that inextinguishable light!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
The Lighthouse, 1849

Few women have witnessed storms she has seen. Upon those danger spots, where the streaming light throws its guiding beam over the night-bound sea, the forces of wind and water vent their strength and fury unrestrained.

The Lady of the Lighthouse,
The Sydney Mail, 3 August 1927

A light here required a
shadow there.

Virginia Woolf

INTRODUCTION

A world apart

From darkness to light, light to darkness. Lighthouses are a curious contradiction: they symbolize hope and trust, but also solitude and hardship. These remote beacons have saved thousands of lives over the centuries and provided comfort to those on ships and on land, steadily blinking their lights across the ocean. Yet many of them now sit empty, cloaked in legend and mystery, with sorrowful tales of solitary keepers perched on sea-ravaged coastlines.

If you live in a coastal town, you probably live near a lighthouse. From the hills surrounding my seaside home in Wellington, New Zealand, I can look across the harbour entrance to the old Pencarrow Lighthouse, a small white tower perched on the headland. Its light hasnt shone since 1935 but it is a maintained historical site, a daymark for ships and an integral part of the citys landscape. First lit on 1 January 1859, it was New Zealands first permanent lighthouse and the home of Mary Jane Bennett, New Zealands first and only female lighthouse keeper. A widow with six children (another had died in infancy), she took over her late husbands job and efficiently managed the light for ten years.

Mary was the inspiration for this book, and her story can be found in . I wanted to know why she was the countrys only female keeper and if there had been many others around the world. My curiosity has taken me on a (metaphorical, low-carbon) journey through the centuries and around the globe, to some of the worlds most fascinating towers.

WOMENS WORK

Stories of female lighthouse keepers are not new. In the United States, for example, there have been female keepers in sole charge of lighthouses since at least the late 1700s. From 1820 to 1859 at least 5 percent of principal keepers employed by the federal government were women (more than 200 women were also appointed assistant keepers during the nineteenth century), most of whom received equal pay to their male counterparts, and several also had male assistants all of which seems astonishing when we recall that this was almost 100 years before American women were allowed to vote.

These women performed difficult work in extremely challenging conditions night and day, all year round, through storms, blizzards and even hurricanes. They saved sailors lives, indirectly by keeping the light burning to enable the safe passage of ships, and also by rowing out into thrashing surf to rescue crew and passengers in peril. Yet it is only in the past few decades that work has been done to acknowledge most of these women and share their stories. How did they become lighthouse keepers? Why were they appointed during such a conservative era, when women were generally employed as domestic servants or seamstresses (if they were in paid employment at all)? And why, despite the often glowing reports these women received from lighthouse inspectors, were women in the twentieth century rarely appointed as principal keepers?

Most of the written history of lighthouses focuses on men. Lighthouses were usually commissioned, built and administered by men, and it is important to share this background to provide context for the keepers. Without these enduring structures, there would have been no one to run them (or men to man them, as the verb indicates). But women played an early role too, from lighting coastal fires to royal lighthouse administration. From the late 1800s keepers also kept daily written logs, which reveal female keepers experiences in their own words.

There are many excellent books on lighthouse history in the United States, particularly Mary Louise Clifford and J Candace Cliffords Women Who Kept the Lights (first published in 1993) and Eric Jay Dolins Brilliant Beacons (2016). However, most lighthouse history books tend to focus on one lighthouse, one state or one country. I wanted to bring together stories from around the world to illustrate how womens experiences varied depending on the era, their circumstances and the location.

Most of the historical information available about lighthouse women comes from North America, the United Kingdom, and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Where possible I have cast the net wider, to include stories from Europe, Japan and South America, for example, but these are only representative. This book does not contain a list of every single female keeper or assistant keeper, nor is it exclusively about lighthouse keepers. I have written about women whose lives were shaped by lighthouses: not only female keepers, but also male keepers wives and daughters. Throughout the nineteenth century many women assisted their husbands, brothers or fathers, carrying out a keepers job in every way but in title. They were not named, paid or publicly acknowledged, but their stories are important. In the twentieth century most lighthouse women were keepers wives who kept the station running, providing stability and supporting their husbands in their isolated work.