Commissioners of Northern Light Houses

The Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) is the General Lighthouse Authority for Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is a non-departmental public body responsible for marine navigation aids around coastal areas.

The NLB was formed in 1786 as the Commissioners of Northern Light Houses by Act of Parliament largely at the urging of the lawyer and politician George Dempster ("Honest George"), to oversee the construction and operation of four Scottish lighthouses: Kinnaird Head, North Ronaldsay, Scalpay and Mull of Kintyre, for which they could borrow up to £1,200. Until this time, the only major lighthouse in Scotland was the coal brazier mounted on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth together with some smaller lights in the approaches of the Tay and Clyde estuaries. None of the major passages around Scotland, which led through dangerous narrows, were marked.

The commissioners, whose first president was the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir James Hunter-Blair, advertised for building estimates, but there were no takers. They received an offer of help from Ezekiel Walker of King's Lynn, who had developed a parabolic reflector for the Hunstanton Lighthouse, and sent Thomas Smith, who was making his name in street lighting in Edinburgh and had offered help, to England to learn from him. Smith soon returned and instructed an Edinburgh architect to prepare the plans for four lighthouses.

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