THE LIGHTHOUSE IN ECONOMICS 365 per ton (say 4d or 1d)for each voyage.Later,books were published setting out the lighthouses passed on different voyages and the charges that would be made In the meantime,Trinity House came to adopt a policy which maintained its rights while preserving its money (and even increasing it).Trinity House would apply for a patent to operate a lighthouse and would then grant a leas for a rental,to a private individual who would then build the lighthouse with his own money.The advantage to a private individual of such a procedure would be that he would secure the co-operation rather than the opposition of Trinity House. An example of this is afforded by the building.and rebuilding.of what is probably the most celebrated British lighthouse the Eddystone,on a reef of rocks some 14 miles offshore from Plymouth.D.Alan Stevenson comments: "The construction of 4 lighthouses in succession on the Eddystone Rocks by 1759 provides the most dramatic chapter in lighthouse history:in striving to withstand the forc of the waves thei ed ent ise,ingenuity and courage of a high order.' 3 In 1665,a petition for a lighthouse on the Eddystone Rocks was received by the British Admiralty.Trinity House com- mented that,though desirable,it"could hardly be accomplished."1 As Samuel Smiles,that chronicler of private enterprise,says,".it was long before any private adventurer was found ready to undertake so daring an enterprise as the erection of a lighthouse on the Eddystone,where only a little crest of rock was visible at high water,scar 20 pable of affording foothold for a struc ture of the very narrowest basis. In 1692,a proposal was put forward by Walter Whitfield,and Trinity House made an agreement with him under which he was to build the lighthouse and Trinity House was to share equally in whatever profits were made.Whitfield didnot,hov ever undertake the His rights were transferred to Henry Winstanley,who,after negotiating with Trinity House,made an agreement in 1696 under which he was to receive the profits for the first five years,after which Trinity House was to share equally in whatever profits were ea red or years. Winstanley built one to and then replaced it with another,the lighthouse being completed in 1699.How- ever,in a great storm in 1703,the lighthouse was swept away,and Winstanley, the lighthousekeepers,and some of his workmen,lost their lives.The total cost up to this time had been 8,000 (all of which had been borne by Win stanley)and the receipts had been 4,000.The government gave Winstanley's widow E200 and a pension of f100 per annum.If the construction of light- 18D.Alan Stevenson,supra note 15,at 113 22 Samuel Smiles,Lives of the Engineers 16(1861). Alluse subject Universi of Chiao 1 on Seper0AM ss Terms and edu/t-and-c). This content downloaded from 137.073.144.138 on September 27, 2016 10:27:46 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c)