This is the only pair of Chance port and starboard lamps we have ever seen. Both lamps have plaques from the Chance Brothers on both the exteriors and the interior lamps. Exterior and interior also have port and starboard lamp plaques.
Called, "Britain's Greatest Glass Manufacturer" Chance Brothers and Co., were top technological innovators throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The company has made everything from lighthouse glass to windows to cathode ray tubes to sunglass lenses to the lenses and oil lamps seen in this fantastic pair of ship's port and starboard lamps.
These early lamps are incredibly rare- their thick hand cut crystal lenses and deep green and red removable inserts Incheslit by separate oil lamps set inside each copper and brass housing. InchesWeighing about 33lbs each, they were built to last aboard the great merchant and passenger sailing vessels so vital to the period. Not only handsome to look at, these are great historical objects. Inches
The manufacture of our lamps featured today, circa 1850, would come in a decade of fame and growth for the Chance Brothers. In 1851 the company provided the glass for the Crystal Palace, home to the Great Exhibition as well as the opal glass for the four faces of London landmark Big Ben.
The 1850's also saw the Chance Brothers become the most important lighthouse engineers producing optical components, machinery, and other equipment for lighthouses around the world. InchesJames Timmins Chance, grandson of William, pioneered placing lighthouse lamps inside a cage surrounded by Fresnel lenses to increase the available light output, a revolution in lighthouse design. InchesAnother important innovation from Chance Brothers was the introduction of rotating optics, allowing adjacent lighthouses to be distinguished from each other by the number of times per revolution that the light flashes.
J.T. Chance would work closely with Britain's lighthouse authority, Trinity House, on pioneering an entirely new process for setting up lighthouses in the UK and British territories. Their lighthouse technology also made its way to America, and some of their lenses are still in operation today, like the one Inchesat Heceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon.
Though the original glassworks in Smethwick closed in 1976 and the company has gone through public ownership and back to private, the company remains in business with the historical Chance logo. Today the company provides materials to the pharmaceutical, chemical, metrology, electronics and lighting industries but best of all they work with museums around the world to preserve and restore historic lighthouses. InchesThere is also a trust working to preserve the original Smethwick factory as a heritage site.
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