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
Lighthouses on the Isle of Arran act in 1786, just 4 lighthouses existed in the whole of Scotland. Over the course of the following 200 years, the NLB expanded greatly and is now responsible for 206 lighthouses, 163 buoys, 29 beacons, 2 supply and maintenance ships and a variety of other traditional and modern navigational aids. For a long time, lighthouses mostly burned wood, coal and candles before oil became predominant. Oil was mostly used in the form of whale oil and colza oil before the introduction of kerosene in the mid 19th century and eventually electricity. Mainland stations excepted, lights were mostly manned by 3