biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1644–1703)
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| biography:
| English engineer and engraver. Made clerk-of-works to Charles II in 1666, he designed the first lighthouse to be fully exposed to the open sea. Having lost part of his fleet and his fortune on the notorious Eddystone Rocks off the coast of Devon, SW England, he designed (1696) a wooden tower on the rocks in which his and countless other ships had foundered. While supervising construction, he was captured by a French privateer (1697) who destroyed the work. Released the same year, he rebuilt his lighthouse to a height of 36·6 m (120 ft), enclosed by 12 iron stanchions grouted into hard rock. He completed the building in 1699, but both he and his lighthouse were swept away in a storm four years later. |
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