5. The creation of Trinity House was a result of the malice of lighthouse keepers and pilots
Prior to the creation of Trinity House lighthouses in Great Britain, they were privately owned and charged passage fees similar to tolls to ships that passed them. Many lighthouse keepers also served as Harbor Masters and pilots. The system was rife with corruption, ships were charged exorbitant fees, denied passage, and in many cases deliberately wrecked, with the Harbor Master claiming salvage rights. Trinity House was created by Henry VIII in 1514 via a Royal Charter to regulate pilots. In 1566 his daughter, Elizabeth I, enjoined Trinity House to “make, erect, and set up such, so many beacons, marks, and signs for the sea…whereby the dangers may be avoided and escaped”. Trinity House erected numerous lighthouses around the British Isles, in some cases rendering the privately owned beacons superfluous, and in others purchasing them outright.
In 1836 Trinity House was awarded the authority to operate all lighthouses in Great Britain, and the last of the privately run houses were taken over. Trinity House was responsible for many innovations in maritime safety, including the use of buoys to mark navigable channels in harbors and rivers, and the first permanently moored lightship, the Nore Lightship, deployed in 1732. During the Blitz of London in 1940 Trinity House was bombed and the interior of the building gutted by the resulting fires. Many of the records which dated to the time of Henry VIII were lost in the bombing. Trinity House is funded through the levying of light fees on all commercial vessels which enter ports in the United Kingdom, a practice not too far removed from the days when owners of lighthouses charged fees for vessels which passed by their beacons on their way to complete their business with British ports.