Bluff Lighthouse, Durban

                          

This photo, showing the signal station and staff quarters, was taken prior to the addition of the ugly concrete casing supposedly meant to 'strengthen' the lighthouse, added in 1935.

The citizens of Durban had long pleaded for a lighthouse on the promontory known as The Bluff but due to various delays they had to wait until the structure was finally opened, with suitable fanfare, in January 1867. 

My great grandfather, Thomas Gadsden, was keeper of the Bluff Light from the late 1860s to early 1880s. He married one of the Port Captain's daughters, Eliza Ann Bell. At one stage Thomas's brother-in-law, Douglas Bell, was Assistant Lightkeeper. It wasn't unusual for a lighthouse to be a family affair.  

Senior Lightkeepers

1867 - 1880              T A Gadsden (Assisted by D Bell in the 1870s)
1885                          Moffat
1898                          J Stephenson
1.7.1898                    B Shortt
1918                          G Johnson
1922                          L R P Daly
1927 - 1933              T F Addison
1938                          G A Orchard
20.1.1941 - 1.4.1942 A Gray

Lightkeepers

27.7.1889 - 30.6.1898 F B Shortt
1.7.1898                     John Murphy
18.8.1931 - 16.7.1934 A Spring
16.7.1934 - 1.3.1941   E L Andreason                   

See Also https://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/08/bluff-lighthouse-1867.html

My name on my tombstone ... 1

In Scotland, women kept their maiden surname throughout life (and most gravestones reflect this), and widows often preferred to return to their maiden surname for census purposes.  I like the idea of having my maiden name on my gravestone even if the married name is included in parenthesis for the sake of accuracy. Census information showing Scottish women with their maiden name can be useful for genealogists.

Now that cremation is virtually the order of the day, and the cost of memorial inscriptions on large chunks of marble or granite prohibitive, the deceased may get only a brief mention on a wall of remembrance. Practical, perhaps, but I favour casting the ashes at a location important to the deceased during his lifetime.

When my mariner ancestor Captain Thomas Gadsden died in 1691 on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, probably of fever, he left a deathbed will instructing his second-in-command to sail his ship, the Mary & Elizabeth, back to England. Thomas was buried on the island but at that time a wooden marker was all that would have shown the site and it is now long gone, rotted away by the elements. Since Thomas was merely passing through there was nobody to pay for his tombstone. Grander residents such as Aron Chapman qualified for a white marble slab with inscription:

St Thomas Lowland Parish, Nevis.

'Here Lyeth the Ashes of

                                 Aron Chapman Esq., who                                

Was one of the King's Coun

Cil in this Island & he de

Parted this life the 15th day 

of March in the 41 year of

his Age and in ye year of 

our Lord God 1693 to the

Great greif of his Friends

And the unspeakable Lofs of this island of Neuis.'

That stone memorials were used in the 17th c is shown by this example. The inscription is the reverse of verbose. No clue is given about the deceased's name.

In the later Middle Ages the 'transi' tomb (a double storey effigy showing the deceased as he appeared in life as well as the skeleton he would become) brought home the brevity of life and that all, even kings and bishops, ended up as food for worms.

Transi tomb and effigy of  John FitzAlan 14th Earl of Arundel (died 1435), in the Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel, West Sussex.  (Acknowledgement: Lampman)

Souvenir Saturday: Bill Gadsden in Durban High School Group 1880s

                                     From 'The Durban High School Record 1866-1906'

One evening my uncle arrived at our family home unexpectedly bearing a leather-bound volume entitled The Durban High School Record. The book was in poor condition but all the pages were there. He triumphantly pointed out a group photograph entitled The School in the Eighties and drew our attention to a name in the caption: 'Bill Gadsden'. My father was the only 'Bill Gadsden' I'd ever known or heard of - and he certainly wasn't around in the 1880s, having been born in 1910.

His father was Sydney Bartle Gadsden, born in 1880, and not a contender for the 'Bill' in the photo.

This was the beginning of a search for the unknown Bill Gadsden who had attended the Durban High School during the 1880s. For a start, the caption of the photo was not helpful in identifying which boy was meant to be Bill Gadsden - the rows are made up of inconsistent numbers of boys and masters and there are some missing names. However, it seems likely that Bill Gadsden is 4th from the right in the 3rd row - the 3rd row from the front, that is, ignoring the rows' numbering given in the caption.

This Bill Gadsden, as research was to prove, was my grandfather's brother, William Gadsden of whom my father had no prior knowledge. The brother had never been mentioned in the family and the only two of my grandfather's siblings of whom my father knew were his father's sisters, Faith and Hope.

After the loss of my grandfather's parents he and his sisters were farmed out to various families until the children reached adulthood. It's possible they never saw their brother William who on leaving school was employed as an apprentice on the Natal Harbour Works, later apparently moving to Verulam on the North Coast of Natal where he worked as a carpenter. He married and had one daughter. My father had had no idea this young man existed and was astonished to see the photograph and to hear the results of my research into our mystery family member. To begin with my father was sceptical and found it hard to believe my grandfather wouldn't have spoken of such a close relation. Still, the brothers must have grown apart with the break up of the family and growing up in different foster homes. Whether there were other causes of estrangement remains unknown.

We must also consider that William died in his early twenties - 24 - of enteric fever (a common cause of death in colonial Natal resulting from impure drinking water) on 22.12.1900 at Verulam, Natal. He was probably buried at Verulam cemetery; his grave has so far not been found. His death notice refers to him as Colonial Englishman. My father William Bell Gadsden was born ten years after his uncle's death and remained unaware that there was a widow and a daughter - a first cousin - living not far away from the rest of the Durban Gadsdens.

William attended the Durban Boys' High School from 1888-1892. His address during that time was 'The Point, Durban'. His father was then employed by the Natal Harbour Works.

The Natal Witness carried a brief announcement of William's birth thus:

Gadsden 18-July-1876 (date of event), 28-July-1876 (date of advert) at the Bluff the wife of Mr Thomas Gadsden of a son. 

Thomas Gadsden's wife was Eliza Ann Bell, daughter of Port Captain William Bell. The couple lost a son named Phillip born in 1879; there is a record of Phillip's baptism at St Paul's Church, Durban. 

Souvenir Saturday - Port Office and Lighthouse staff 1878: including Gadsden and Bell

Is Your Ancestor listed here in 1878?

The Natal Almanac and Yearly Directory is a mine of information on the Port and Town of Durban in the late 19th c. This entry tell us that T (Thomas) Gadsden was Lighthouse Keeper with a salary of 125 pounds per annum. His brother-in-law Douglas William Bell was Assistant Keeper at 100 pounds. At the time, the Port Captain was Alexander Airth. (Captain William Bell had died in 1869.) Gadsden was married to Captain Bell's daughter Eliza Ann.

Customs and Excise staff are also listed, as well as those in the Engineer's Office. 

Is your ancestor listed?

Durban Point and Bay in the 1870s, with the Berea dimly 

outlined in the distance. 

Souvenir Saturday: Lighthouse keeper's view, Bluff, Durban ca 1860

The Bay of Natal from the Bluff  ca 1860:
  watercolour by unknown artist, from an Album amicorum. (author's collection)

This is the view my lighthouse keeper great grandfather Thomas Gadsden would have looked out upon from the Bluff lighthouse during his tenure there (1867 - 1880s). 

It is taken from the seaward end of the Bluff looking across the Point and Bay towards the heavily wooded Berea, with the buildings of D'Urban clustered onshore, right. A sailing ship negotiates the entrance channel in the foreground, dhows and other small craft are seen in the Bay, and the tug Pioneer, her single stack smoking, is in the centre of the picture, near the Point. At left is the signal station and signalman's house on the Bluff. It is possible that the tall building on the extreme right represents St. Paul's Church.

The painting can be dated to post December 1859 because the steam vessel shown is undoubtedly the Pioneer, Natal's first steam tug. She was 124 tons and was despatched (fitted with masts and sails) from the Thames at the end of July 1859, arriving in Durban 111 days later, having made the journey under sail only, her paddles being fitted in the Bay after her arrival here. On Boxing Day 1859 she was shown, flag-bedecked, to the assembled populace, and crossed the Bar with various dignitaries on board, sailing out into a choppy sea beyond the Bluff - to the discomfort of some of her passengers.

A rare find, this little watercolour in ornate embossed surround, was one of several original drawings in a mid-nineteenth century 'Album amicorum' (what we used to call an autograph album), bound in gilt maroon calf. The artist has signed himself (more probably herself) 'L.C.' and entitled the picture 'Bay of Natal  and; Town of D'Urban'.

A peaceful and attractive colonial scene, though with hidden dangers lurking - many vessels came to grief on the beach or the Bluff rocks.

The notorious Bar, a sandbank across the entrance to the Bay, was the greatest hazard to shipping at Port Natal, and 'should on no account be attempted by a stranger, as the channel frequently shifts in direction and depth'. It was this problem, the changing depth of water over the Bar, which frequently necessitated vessels anchoring in the roadstead outside, and, if a gale sprang up, there was a chance of them being driven on-shore or wrecked on the rocks below the Bluff. A case in point was the Byrne settler ship Minerva, 987 tons, which was wrecked on the night of 4 July 1850 when she parted her main anchor in a sudden north-easterly while waiting in the 'roads'. Though the 2nd mate drowned, all the passengers were saved, but the ship became a total wreck and the immigrants' personal belongings went to the bottom. 

Only three months after Thomas Gadsden's arrival, the Sebastian and the Earl of Hardwicke were beached in a similar gale on 26 September 1863.

Lighthouse Keeper at the Bluff Light Natal 1878: T Gadsden and D W Bell

Bluff Lighthouse and Signal Station circa 1870s

Extract from the Natal Almanac 1878 giving names of employees in the Engineer's Office Port Office, Customs Excise and Lighthouse. My great grandfather Thomas Gadsden was earning 125 pounds per annum. His brother in law Douglas Bell as Assistant Keeper was earning 100 pounds.

A tidewaiter, incidentally, was a customs officer who checked goods when a vessel landed, to make sure duties were paid.

You may find an ancestor's name among those listed.

This edition of the Almanac appeared the year before the
Anglo-Zulu War took place, and the year before Thomas Gadsden's son Phillip
 was born on 14 May 1879, only to die in infancy.

Keepers' difficulties at the Bluff Lighthouse 1870s

Drawing by Cathcart Methven showing the Bluff Lighthouse, keepers' quarters and signal station.

From the moment of its commissioning, the Bluff Lighthouse was kept well-supplied with oil, wicks and other necessities for the maintenance of the light. However, the human beings who tended it - a vital part of the operation - had several difficulties to contend with.

For a start, the lighthouse wasn't within easy reach of the town of Durban. Though not far distant as the crow flies, accessibility was limited by the Bluff's wooded and steep terrain. Although a pathway, originally constructed by the Godden brothers,  merely a track, ran up the side of the headland from the shore and had been used to carry building materials during construction of the beacon, it was not an ideal access to civilization. A boat was required to cross the channel to the Point. This was still a long walk from the commercial centre, where lightkeepers needed to purchase personal supplies of food etc.

The keepers' quarters were rudimentary though were later improved on.  Everything took much longer due to colonial bureaucracy.

One of the biggest difficulties was the lack of a fresh water supply on the Bluff. This vital commodity had to be carried in casks from the mainland, by boat across the channel, or across the Bay then transferred to unwieldy ox-carts which would continue on to the seaward end of the Bluff for the casks to be delivered to the signalman and lightkeepers.

Letter from Thomas Gadsden, lightkeeper,
to Alexander Airth, Port Captain.

Thomas Gadsden was forced to write to the port Captain (then Alexander Airth) in August 1878, most respectfully begging that something be done about the water problem. The lightkeepers were running short of water - only a week's supply left. 

Apparently the signalman was in the same predicament. 'Therefore, Sir, it will be absolutely necessary to supply us with water from the other side ...' (i.e. from the town of Durban). Thomas signs 'Your obedient servant' but was clearly a worried man. He had a wife and a young family, and was also responsible for the various boatmen and other assistants employed at the lighthouse.
















The water problem was not resolved for some time and led directly to the death of one of the Gadsden children, Phillip, who died in infancy of typhoid - a water-borne disease which was rife in the Colony until well into the following century.

Bluff Light-keepers 1875: Gadsden and Bell

According to the listing of the Port Office in the Natal Almanac, when my light-keeper great grandfather, Thomas Gadsden, was Head Keeper of the Bluff Light, Durban, he was paid a hundred pounds a year, 'with quarters'. This wasn't an enormous salary but he was doing better than the 'Native Assistant' at twelve pounds. And in comparison with the Port Captain, then Alexander Airth, who received 350 pounds, perhaps Gadsden's salary was fair.

At this date, the Assistant Light-keeper was D W Bell, Gadsden's brother-in-law, the son of the late Captain William Bell who had died in 1869. Gadsden had married Bell's daughter, Eliza Ann, in 1873.

So the lighthouse was very much a family affair. Douglas Bell took over as Head keeper in about 1880. 

This unique photograph, restored from its original damaged condition, shows various members of the Bell family including possibly the only surviving picture of Douglas Bell, left. He could be holding the Dolland telescope which previously belonged to his father, Capt Bell. Unfortunately, it was this portion of the original photo which was water-damaged and the figure may not be an accurate likeness of Douglas Bell - though the telescope was definitely visible in the original.

Capt Bell and his Dolland telescope

The ladies are 'Aunt Ellen' (Ellen Harriet Bell, daughter of Captain Bell, who later married Edward Baxter) and her niece 'Cousin Violet Bell' (Violet Amy, daughter of Sarah Scott Bell and Charles George Pay).  The other little girl may be Natalia Beatrice Pay, sister of Violet. The identity of the bearded man, perhaps Assistant Light-keeper at the time, is not known.

The photograph was taken by W E James who at that date, ca 1880, had a studio at the Point, Durban.

Most interesting of all is the structure in front of which the group is foregathered. This is likely to be the current keeper's quarters near the Bluff Lighthouse. It has a corrugated iron roof over timber walls which are raised above the ground (against white ants). The windows with their top 'awning' detail are typical of the period. Note the plaited fence.

For more about the Gadsden/Bell connection with the Bluff Light see:
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/08/keeper-of-bluff-light-thomas-alfred.html

Photograph restoration: Hartmut Jager
Photograph from Gordon Brown.

A Light on the Bluff 2

Durban from the Bluff ca 1870s - a view my ancestor Thomas Gadsden would have gazed out upon frequently during his years as lighthousekeeper at the Bluff Light.

When the light was first commissioned it was claimed to be the only lighthouse on the East African coast between Port Elizabeth and Egypt. The light boasted 3 million candlepower with a nominal range of 21 nautical miles, though usually this was claimed to be 28 miles.

Despite this apparent power, the revolving light did not 'come up to expectations', according to the authorities, and was replaced by a new light mechanism in mid 1869.

My lighthousekeeper ancestor

When my great grandfather, Thomas Gadsden, arrived in Natal on the barque Priscilla in 1863, there was no lighthouse on the Bluff – the wooded promontory which sheltered the harbour of Port Natal, later named D’Urban.

Despite numerous shipwrecks in the area, especially during the settler ship era of the 1850s, and the pleas of the town’s inhabitants, no beacon had yet been erected as an aid to navigation. Whether Thomas noticed the lack of a light on the Bluff in the early days of his arrival is not recorded, and in any case his priority at that stage was to find gainful employment. He acquired the position of turnkey at the Durban gaol, probably not a well-paid occupation and certainly without much job satisfaction. It seems likely that Thomas would look around in the hope of more suitable employment.

The British colonial government finally overcame its reluctance to provide a lighthouse for the Port and the foundation stone was laid on 22 November 1864. However, with various delays impeding progress, it wasn’t until two years later that the structure was completed in October 1866. During that time, Thomas had undoubtedly become acquainted with the famous Port Captain, William Bell, whose daughter Eliza Ann would later be Thomas’s wife, and there must have been many an unofficial discussion on the topic of the new lighthouse.  Whether Thomas went through normal bureaucratic government channels, making application for the position of lightkeeper, with his father-in-law to be putting in a good word for him, or whether Bell had more influence in the matter, is uncertain. There’s no question that Thomas’s future looked much brighter: he would have a reasonable and regular salary and an extra perquisite in the shape of a keeper’s cottage.

Opening of the Bluff Lighthouse 1866

As far as we know, Thomas had no experience of lighthousekeeping, though he may have had some maritime knowledge which would come in handy. His mother Mary Ann Gadsden had been part-owner of at least one vessel, the Susan, which is on record as having been involved in a collision with another ship on a voyage between Liverpool and Waterford, Ireland, in the 1830s.  In any case, as soon as Thomas was appointed as keeper of the Bluff lighthouse he would be given very detailed instructions as to what was expected of him. He would soon discover that lighthousekeeping was no sinecure.

At that time, Natal was a fledgling colony, its population diminished in numbers since a downturn in the economy during the 1860s had led to some of the settlers of the Byrne years leaving for fresh pastures in Australia, or even returning to England. The town was still a straggle of unpaved streets and most houses were of wattle and daub, tough some public buildings, such as the Court House, were of stone.

The Bluff was sparsely populated, densely wooded and inaccessible other than by boat across from the Point or via a track constructed by Richard Godden for conveying building materials. Therefore, the lighthousekeeper would not be in easy reach of such civilization as existed below in the town of Durban. Provisions of all kinds would have to be brought by boat and then hauled up the steep hill to be offloaded at the lighthouse. Another serious matter was the lack of fresh water, which also had to be carried in barrels for the use of the keeper and his family. Thomas wrote to the authorities in some distress concerning the water problem. It would not be completely resolved for some time and would have drastic results for one of Thomas’s children, Phillip, who died in infancy of typhoid (a water-borne disease rife in the Colony until well into the twentieth century).

Hunting was good, the Bluff being home to various species of buck as well as monkeys, birds and other wildlife. The sea was at Thomas’s doorstep and like most keepers he would have spent some of his spare time fishing.

View of Durban and the Bay from the Bluff, as Thomas Gadsden would have seen it.

Unfortunately, Thomas left us no written record of his years as keeper, though gradually a picture has been built up of what his life must have been like. It was in many ways idyllic, looking out over the beautiful Bay with its continual stream of shipping, happy with his lovely wife and their growing children and kept busy with his duties. His brother-in-law, Douglas Bell, became Assistant Keeper for some years. The keepers worked in shifts and there was plenty for them both to do, keeping the equipment maintained and everything shipshape and well-polished. Failure to keep the light burning throughout each night would result in instant dismissal.

How Eliza Ann adjusted to the somewhat isolated life, near the town but not of it, is not clear. The shock of losing her eldest child, Phillip, must have been severe, though infant mortality at the time was generally high. She had two further sons and two daughters, but like most mothers never forgot her lost first-born.  We know of his existence only through his baptismal record in the St Paul’s register. From the time of Phillip’s death Eliza Ann’s health slowly deteriorated and Thomas, anxious about her, began to suffer from stress.

The constant night watches took their toll on Thomas's own health and he made several applications to be removed from his lighthouse duties and be given other employment.

After an argument with the then Port Captain, Alexander Airth (William Bell had died in 1869) Thomas was dismissed from his post. He pleaded to be reinstated, writing that he and his wife and children were reduced to living in a tent on the Bluff.

His plea went unheard. This disaster took a further toll on Eliza Ann’s health. Eliza Ann’s widowed mother was in no position to assist the little family as she had been left in straitened circumstances after Bell’s death: George Cato, Bell’s old friend from Cape sailing days, continued to pay Bell’s salary to his widow until her own death.

Records show that Thomas’s position changed to that of Timekeeper for the Harbour Board and he remained in that post until his death on 25 October 1893 at the age of 54.

Eliza Ann survived him by seven years. Their eldest son William married, had a daughter and died of enteric at Verulam in 1900 in his early twenties. Of the other siblings Faith and Hope both married, and Sydney Bartle was the only one of Thomas's children to continue the Natal Gadsden line, with the appearance in 1910 of William Bell Gadsden, named for Eliza Ann's father, the Port Captain. 

The lighthouse remained as Thomas Gadsden knew it until July 1922, when improved optical apparatus was introduced. Some ten years later came the installation of electricity, and the iron tower, considered by then to be unsafe, was encased in concrete. After seventy three years in service, the old Bluff Light shone for the last time on 15 October 1940 and the following June the lighthouse was demolished. 

Souvenir Saturday: Captain George Brown of the Priscilla

This photograph shows Captain George Brown and his wife Frances ca 1870.

Brown commanded the clipper barque Priscilla which brought my great great grandfather, Thomas Gadsden, to Natal in June 1863. The Priscilla, one of the earliest of the White Cross clippers (others were the Silvery Wave, the Verulam, Isabella Hartley and Burton Stather) was a frequent visitor to the Colony during the 1860s and 70s.

Advertisements in The Natal Mercury reveal that the Priscilla in November 1863 made the fastest passage then on record from Natal to England, i.e. 52 days.

The card mount mentions C Bunting & Sons: Bunting, Charles, photographer, 72 Nelson Street, South Bank near Middlesbrough is listed in Bulmer’s Directory 1890. Bunting had a studio there from at least 1884. [Source: The Cleveland, North Yorkshire and South Durham Family History Society.]

SOUTH BANK, formerly called Tees Tilery, is a rapidly increasing and populous market town in this township, having a station on the Darlington and Saltburn line of the North Eastern railway, and is distant three miles from Middlesbrough. (Bulmer's History and Directory of North Yorkshire (1890).

The Natal Mercury, 12 April 1861

Barbados and the Gadsden connection

And now for something completely different.

Barbados first assumed significance for me through its connections with the Gadsden surname. In November 1715, Thomas Gadsden (1688-1741), born in Stepney, London, married Elizabeth Terrey in the parish of St Michael, Bridgetown, Barbados. Elizabeth was Barbadian born, daughter of an Irish sea captain, Christopher Terrey. The sea featured largely in Thomas Gadsden’s career, too. His father, another Thomas, had been a merchant captain sailing his own ship, the Mary & Elizabeth, between Britain and her American colonies and dying - in all likelihood of fever - at Nevis in the West Indies in 1691.

Thomas Gadsden the younger joined the British Navy as a midshipman in 1702, climbing the ladder to the rank of Lieutenant within five years. Discharged on half-pay in 1712, he returned to the sea in the merchant service, trading in various commodities as his father had done before him between the New World colonies and Britain. During this time Barbados would have been a regular port of call and Thomas undoubtedly took advantage of the brisk trade between Barbados and Charlestown (later Charleston) on the mainland of South Carolina.

Thomas established useful contacts in Charlestown and he and his wife Elizabeth moved there permanently, Thomas graduating to the important post of King’s Collector of Customs. Their first three children died in infancy. A fourth child, a son, was born and named Christopher after Elizabeth’s father.

Christopher Gadsden

Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805) was destined to become famous as a leader of the South Carolina Radicals, serving in the Continental Congress which enacted the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. During the Revolutionary War he was a Brigadier General of forces defending Charlestown.

His story is told in numerous sources, among them Godbold and Woody’s Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution (University of Tennessee Press, 1982). Read my brief account  at www.infobarrel.com/Christopher_Gadsden_1724-1805

Barbados July 2012, coastal view; could be Natal.

As usually happens, the search for context – the backdrop to events - draws family historians to a wide variety of topics, including in the case of Gadsden research the strong ties which existed between Barbados and South Carolina. I also found a number of intriguing similarities between Barbados and Natal, both sugar-growing colonies which experienced attendant labour difficulties.

St Michael's 

St Michael’s, Bridgetown, the church where Thomas and Elizabeth Gadsden were married in 1715, was a wooden structure put up in the 1660s and taken down by a hurricane in 1780 (hurricanes were prevalent in Barbados). Consequently, the building now on the same site is not the original church, but one constructed in 1789.

The Great Hurricane of 1831 attempted, though failed, to destroy this replacement edifice built of coral stone. Now officially the Cathedral Church of St Michael’s and All Angels (Diocese of Barbados) it is still in use but in urgent need of restoration. In the churchyard, gravestones – some of very early date - show signs of vandalism, lead picked out of memorial  inscriptions.

East Point Lighthouse, Barbados

General dilapidation extends to other man-made landmarks, including the lighthouses at Harrison’s Point and East Point.

Despite inevitable concessions to tourism, the scenic beauty of Barbados remains untouched: wide white sands and limpid turquoise sea, palm trees and green fields of sugar cane. This
is not the place to comment on the darker threads in the island's tapestry: pirates and slaves.

At Bathsheba

Further reading:

Warren Alleyne and Henry Fraser: The Barbados-Carolina Connection (Macmillan, Caribbean 1988)

Natal's lighthouse opened at last, January 1867.

Natal's inhabitants had waited impatiently for their lighthouse since the 1850s. It wasn't until 22 November 1864 that the foundation stone was laid, and even then, with delays in delivery of the necessary materials, as well as difficulties in transporting these to the actual site, it was another two years before the tower was finally completed, in October 1866. Mr Patterson, Colonial Engineer, circulated the following details about the structure:

The lighthouse is to be erected upon the Bluff, on the northern side of the entrance to the Bay of Natal. It is to consist of a cast iron, conoidal tower, loaded at the base with concrete, surmounted by a cast iron lighthouse plinth, and a gunmetal lantern, glazed with plate glass, with a domed roof covered with copper. The lighting apparatus is to be a second class holophotal lenticular apparatus on Fresnel's system with a first class lamp. The lights will be revolving with brightest flashes at intervals of sixty seconds. The apparatus is composed of concentric glass lenses in gunmetal frames forming an eight-sided figure. The light which would otherwise radiate through the portion of the azimuth which is landwards, and therefore does not require illumination, is intercepted by an arrangement of totally refracting lenses, and returned to the focus to strengthen the seaward portion of the light. The revolution of the apparatus is effected by means of clockwork fixed inside the iron pedestal upon which the apparatus is supported. 

On the date of the official opening of the Bluff Lighthouse, 23 January 1867, the mood of the townsfolk was one of jubilation and everyone turned out in full force for the gala occasion. It was a glorious day with just enough of a southerly breeze to temper the full radiance of a summer sun. Businesses were closed, and the railway carried throngs of spectators to the Point from where boats were taken to the Bluff. The scene at the Bay assumed epic proportions.

Uniformed soldiers, dignitaries and citizens gathered
 at the opening of the Bluff lighthouse, the variety
of costume worn - particularly the hats - lending a
colonial air to the proceedings.

Members of the Durban Rifle Brigade and Artillery Company formed a Guard of Honour. The Mayor, George Cato, and some of his friends were on the little steamer, the Enuna Scott. The ship Umgeni, the barque Priscilla and other vessels were lying peacefully in the Bay, dressed from stem to stern with flags, and little boats were laden with family parties. Dignitaries included His Excellency Colonel Bisset, the Administrator, the Hon. Theophilus Shepstone, Secretary for Native Affairs, the Mayor and Councillors and Rev. W. H. C. Lloyd, the Colonial Chaplain. Officers of the 99th Regiment added a splash of colour. It is entirely likely that among the spectators was my great grandfather, Thomas Gadsden, as well as my great great grandfather, the Port Captain, William Bell. With everyone gathered at the foot of the lighthouse, the ceremony began.

An address was presented to Colonel Bisset by the Colonial Engineer, pointing out the reasons for the delay in completion of the work and adding that the completed structure had cost £5,800, £200 less than estimated. His Excellency was handed the keys and was asked to inaugurate the opening of this important public work "upon which, above all others, we may humbly hope the divine blessing will be given, as it is instituted for the benefits and welfare not only of this Colony, but for those of our fellow men of whatever name or nation they may be, who approach our shores". After the Governor had inspected the tower and surveyed the scene from the lantern gallery, Rev. Lloyd offered up a prayer for the safety of the structure. His Excellency delivered himself of the opinion that it was one of the best lighthouses on the South African coast and confidently expected it would bring to the port the commerce of the Australian, the African and Eastern World. God Save the Queen was enthusiastically rendered, followed by repeated hurrahs for the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Administrator and the Misses Bisset, followed by a toast by the Mayor: May the light of Natal never grow dim. 


Much to the disappointment of the spectators, permission to view the lightroom was refused, though the tower could be inspected. The lighthouse was 81 feet high and 282 feet above sea level. 

Lighthouse and signalman's quarters at a later date.