The Australian coastline is dotted with historic beacons of hope: lighthouses. There’s something about them – their allure is part history, part design, part (often beautiful) setting, part engineering feat. Many of them overlook the sites of terrible nineteenth-century shipwrecks where lives of those venturing to a new colony were lost. It’s impossible to approach and walk into a lighthouse without feeling that history, without hearing the echoes of those who played a role in keeping the lights burning.

For those who took on that role, life was often lonely, dangerous and sometimes impoverished. Lighthouses, and the keepers of the light, need to be remembered. They have an important place in the history of white settlement in Australia.

Many people have helped the development of this site by providing information and maps. Lucy Callaghan is grateful to Wren and Ann Lashmar, Cameron Macphee, Mick Rosewarne, John Ibbotson and Pat Howell for their generous assistance.