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In 1881, the first public electrical street lights in the world were installed in Godalming, a town that is about 30 miles southwest of London, England. Electricity was in its infancy and many people needed to be convinced that it was not dangerous. To help showcase all the new inventions and uses for electricity, the International Exposition of Electricity was held in Paris, France. The focal point of the main exposition hall was a lighthouse, which in itself seems to be of mysterious origins.
To put the time period in perspective, many famous historical events happened in the United States in 1881 that most people should be familiar with, even if they don’t know that they happened in that year. Four of the events that stand out are the assassination of President James A. Garfield, the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, the Great Michigan Thumb Fire that destroyed one million acres and took 282 lives, and it was the year that Billy the Kid was shot dead by Sheriff Pat Garrett. Interestingly, also in 1881 inventor Thomas Edison, who devised the first practical electric light bulb, and Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone, formed a partnership when they created the Oriental Telephone Company to distribute telephones to Greece, Turkey, China and other parts of Asia.
In its September 10, 1881 publication, in describing the lighthouse at the Paris Expo, the American Associates for the Advancement of Science wrote: “In center of nave a lighthouse is erected which is a copy of the lighthouses that guard the coasts of France. It is surrounded by a small water basis although which it may be called ornamental is definitely useless for the purpose for which it is designed.” In this photograph, the view from the Chinese Maritime Customs Service collection at the University of Bristol in England might indicate that the lighthouse is in the British Section, but it is not. On the back of the photo it was written, “Electric Light made by B & F,” which would mean it was made by Barbier & Fenestre, which later became the firm of Barbier, Benard & Turenne. However, since the photograph was in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service it may well have been that the lens and perhaps even the tower were destined for China when the International Exposition of Electricity was over. But, that is just conjecture. The entire exhibit hall has long ago disappeared with the pages of time. However, it stood near where the Eiffel Tower now stands that was built in 1889, a few short years after the International Exposition of Electricity. (copyright 2012 photo by Felicity Somers Eve, courtesy Historical Photographs of China Project, http://hpc.vcea.net/.)
This story appeared in the
Mar/Apr 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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