History of lighthouses with demands, and to the loss of a number of ships, most notably the Dutch merchant ship Vreede in 1800 with the loss of 380 lives. After the reforms of the Lighthouse Act 1836, owners still managed to collect large dues, of which the largest were for the Smalls Lighthouse which collected £23,000 in 1852 and Trinity House was forced to spend over £1m in buying back leases, including £444,000 for the Skerries Lighthouse. The modern era of lighthouses began at the turn of the 18th century, as lighthouse construction boomed in lockstep with burgeoning levels of transatlantic commerce. Advances
History of lighthouses was first produced by Matthew Boulton, in partnership with Argand, in 1784 and became the standard for lighthouses for over a century. John Richardson Wigham was the first to develop a system for gas illumination of lighthouses. He was given a grant by the Dublin Ballast Board in 1865 and he fitted his new gas 'crocus' burner at the Baily Lighthouse in Howth Head, giving an output 4 times more powerful than the equivalent oil lights. An improved 'composite' design, installed in the Baily light in 1868, was 13 times more powerful than the most brilliant light then known, according