Lighthouse - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition lighthouse

Definition :

Lighthouse, a building, from which lights are shown to guide ships at sea. The power of erecting and maintaining them is a branch of the royal prerogative. By the (English) Harbours, Docks and Piers Clause, etc. Act, 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. 27), lighthouses are not to be erected without the sanction of Trinity House. The management of lighthouses is now regulated by the (English) Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. c. 60), Part, XI., ss. 634-675, as amended by the (English) Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act, 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 44), which creates a General Lighthouse Fund in substitution for the Mercantile Marine Fund, and, subject to the rights of persons having authority over local lighthouses, is vested in the following bodies:-

(1) As to lighthouses in England, Wales, Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, and Alderney, and the adjacent seas and islands, and in Gibraltar, in the Trinity House.

(2) In Scotland and the adjacent seas and islands, and in the Isle of Man, in the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses.

(3) In Ireland and the adjacent seas and islands, in the Dublin Corporation. See now the (English) Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922, 12 Geo. 5, c. 4), s. 1, Sched., Art. 4 and Annex.

The Act of 1898 provides that light dues are to be levied with respect to the voyages made by ships, or by way of periodical payment, and no longer with respect to the lights which a ship passes, or from which it derives benefit, provides a scale of light dues and rules for levying them, and enacts that the expenses of Colonial lights are to be paid out of the General Lighthouse Fund. See FALSE LIGHTS. (Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act, 1898, 161 & 62, Vict. c. 44).