76 FEBRUARY 2016 http://www.stampandcoin.co.ukF
rom the earliest
hill-top beacons
with manually
stocked warning
fires, to the latest
technology employed
in remotely-operated lighthouses, for
more than 5,000 years the lives of
sailors and explorers have been saved
by the presence of warning lights
visible to those at sea.
Many communities and countries
pride themselves upon their
lighthouses, seeing them both as part
of their heritage and often also as a
tourist attraction. As such, this is a
subject area with huge potential for
stamp collectors, covering maritime
history, engineering, science and, of
course, the stories of sea rescue and
the work of lighthouse keepers.
The first known lighthouse was at
Pharos in Alexandria, built c.280BC
and at around 120 metres high, for
centuries the tallest building everExplore maritime adventures, history, geography, science and engineering by starting a collection
devoted to the lighthouses of the world, one of the most popular stamp collecting topicsconstructed. Although this lighthouse
was destroyed by an earthquake in the
fourteenth century, it lived on in the
imagination of artists and writers, and
inspired the beacons which followed
in countries around the world.
The Pharos lighthouse has
appeared on several postage stamps
over the years, including a Hungary
stamp from the early 1980s, devoted
to the Seven Wonders of the World
(of which Pharos is one). Plans
are now underway to rebuild the
lighthouse close to its original site in
Alexandria, Egypt.
The primitive form of fire beacons
as a means of communication even
in the days before lighthouses was
part of Royal Mail’s ‘Millennium
Fire and Light’ issue of 2000,
featuring a lighted coastal beacon, in
celebration of this ancient form of
communication which has conveyed
news of war and invasion faster than
any human could convey a message.Thematics
The spread of technology
The collapse of Pharos lighthouse
in the Middle Ages coincided with
the start of lighthouse technology
spreading to Europe, as Arabic
merchants expanded their trade routes.
As an island nation, Britain has
a rich lighthouse heritage, although
for centuries, European mariners
tried to avoid the country’s coastline,
because of the greed of the owners of
privately run lighthouses, who had
a licence from the Crown to collect
their own revenues.
One of the first UK stamps to
feature a lighthouse was a 1972
stamp which marked 150 years
of HM Coastguard with a stamp
showing a mariner at Hartland
Point, and a stylized lighthouse in
the background.Lighthouses on stamps
p74 Theme.indd 76 21/12/2015 10:19