 Flag | |
| Formation | 1867 |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-departmental public body |
| Purpose | General lighthouse authority |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh,Scotland |
| Services | Navigational aids |
Key people | Mike Bullock, Chief Executive |
| Revenue | £28,022,000 (2024[1]) |
| Expenses | £29,816,000 (2024[2]) |
| Website | Official website |
TheNorthern Lighthouse Board (NLB) is thegeneral lighthouse authority forScotland and theIsle of Man. It is anon-departmental public body responsible formarinenavigation aids around coastal areas.
| Erection of Lighthouses Act 1786 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
 | |
| Long title | An Act for erecting certain Light Houses in the northern Parts of Great Britain. |
| Citation | 26 Geo. 3. c. 101 |
| Territorial extent | Great Britain |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 27 June 1786 |
| Commencement | 24 January 1786[a] |
| Repealed | 1 May 1855 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amended by | Erection of Lighthouses Act 1788 |
| Repealed by | Merchant Shipping Repeal Act 1854 |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The NLB was formed by anact of Parliament, theErection of Lighthouses Act 1786 (26 Geo. 3. c. 101), as theCommissioners of Northern Light Houses, largely at the urging of the lawyer and politicianGeorge Dempster ("Honest George"), to oversee the construction and operation of four Scottish lighthouses:Kinnaird Head,North Ronaldsay,Scalpay andMull of Kintyre, for which they were empowered to borrow up to £1,200. Until then, the only major lighthouse in Scotland was the coalbrazier mounted on theIsle of May in theFirth of Forth, together with some smaller lights in the Firths of theTay andClyde. None of the major passages around Scotland, which led through dangerous narrows, were marked.
The commissioners, whose first president was theLord Provost of Edinburgh,Sir James Hunter-Blair, advertised for building estimates, but there were no takers. They received an offer of help from Ezekiel Walker ofKing's Lynn, who had developed aparabolic reflector for theHunstanton Lighthouse,[3] and sentThomas Smith, who was making his name in street lighting in Edinburgh and had offered help, to England to learn from him. Smith soon returned and instructed an Edinburgh architect to prepare the plans for four lighthouses.
| Erection of Lighthouses Act 1788 | |
|---|---|
| Act of Parliament | |
| |
| Long title | An Act to render more effectual an Act passed in the Twenty-sixth Year of His present Majesty's Reign, intituled, "An Act for erecting certain Light Houses in the Northern Parts of Great Britain." |
| Citation | 28 Geo. 3. c. 25 |
| Territorial extent | Great Britain |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 11 June 1788 |
| Commencement | 27 November 1787[a] |
| Repealed | 1 May 1855 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amends | Erection of Lighthouses Act 1786 |
| Repealed by | Merchant Shipping Repeal Act 1854 |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The £1,200 was spent before the first light at Kinnaird Head was finished, and a further act of Parliament, theErection of Lighthouses Act 1788 (28 Geo. 3. c. 25), was required which allowed them to start to receive half the lighthouse dues set to be levied on shipping, before all the lights were finished. By the end of 1787 the first light had been installed. At the Mull of Kintyre everything had to be transported by pack horse fromCampbeltown, 12 miles away, but it was lit by October 1788. To get to Scalpay in theOuter Hebrides and North Ronaldsay in theOrkney Isles needed boat trips across rough waters for Smith and Mills, the stonemason, but all the same the job was completed by October 1789, to widespread praise. Thedues which had originally been set at twoshillings per ton of cargo in the 17th century, were now reduced to one penny per ton.[4]
The commissioners' most famous engineer wasRobert Stevenson, whose sonsDavid,Alan, andThomas followed their father into the profession. The Stevenson dynasty built the majority of the northern lights, in some exceptionally challenging locations. Their lights were some of the engineering masterpieces of their time, notably those atBell Rock,Skerryvore, andMuckle Flugga.
Between 1876 and 2005 the Northern Lighthouse Board also maintainedfoghorns at a number of locations. The last (at Skerryvore) was sounded for the last time on 4 October 2005.[citation needed]
The board is based at itsGeorgian headquarters building inGeorge Street in the centre ofEdinburgh, from where it remotely monitors its network. Technical operations are carried out from a base inOban,Argyll and Bute, where there are maintenance workshops and facilities for the construction of buoys and beacons. The NLB's vessels are also based here.
Under the terms of theScotland Act 1998, the NLB isnot a devolved body and thus remains directly accountable to the UKSecretary of State for Transport. In practice, there is close co-operation with both theScottish Government and theIsle of Man Government. The NLB is funded by pooledlight dues administered by the UK's Department for Transport, and distributed to the NLB,Trinity House, and theCommissioners of Irish Lights.
As of 31 March 2024, the NLB operates the following:[5]
The NLB operates two lighthouselighthouse tenders/buoy tenders, known by the prefix Northern Lighthouse Vessel, or NLV.NLV Pole Star has been in service since 2000 and will in 2025 be replaced by the newPole Star V. This vessel is being built in Spain by the Gondän company.
TheNLV Pharos was delivered to the depot in Oban on 31 March 2007.[6] This is the tenthPharos, replacing the ninthPharos which was sold in September 2006 for use as a Fishery Protection vessel forSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.
Most of the commissioners have always beenex officio appointments. The original commissioners appointed in 1786 were the Scottish law agents of the Crown, the sheriffs of Scotland's coastal counties, and the provosts and lord provosts of Scottish cities and towns with strong mercantile interests. Reform of local government and sheriffdoms have since resulted in changes. Previous commissioners includeRichard Vary Campbell.[7]
The current Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, as provided by schedule 8 to theMerchant Shipping Act 1995, are theLord Advocate and theSolicitor General for Scotland; thelords provost of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, the conveners of theHighland Council and theArgyll and Bute Council; thesheriffs principal of all the sheriffdoms in Scotland; a Manx representative nominated by theLieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man and appointed by the Secretary of State; and up to five co-opted commissioners.[8]
The NLB uses two flags, anensign and a commissioners' flag. The commissioners' flag, a plainWhite Ensign with apre-1801 Union Flag in thecanton, defaced with a blue lighthouse in the fly, is the only British flag still in use which incorporates the pre-1801 Union Flag.[9] According to the Northern Lighthouse Board, this came about because the board had a large stock of flags on hand in 1801, and thought it prudent to keep using them; this eventually became tradition.[10]This flag is only flown from vessels with commissioners aboard. The ensign is aBlue Ensign defaced with a white lighthouse in the fly, and is for general use.
The board's headquarters flies the commissioners' flag, alongside the Saltire and the Isle of Man flag.[11]
Why do our Commissioners' Flags bear the Union Flag of 1606 when the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses were incorporated in 1786? The answer is surprisingly simple, bearing in mind the Royal Proclamation of 1801 (which introduced the present Union with a red saltire). The Commissioners decided in 1803 that as there was a large stock of the old flags still in existence they would not restock until the old flags were used up. From fiscal prudence are traditions born – it came to be that the Commissioners continued to wear the old flag.
Headquarters: Great Minster House, 33Horseferry Road,London | |
| Ministers | |
| Non-ministerial department | |
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55°57′10″N3°12′05″W / 55.9527°N 3.2014°W /55.9527; -3.2014
