THEY vanished without trace and were believed to have been swept away in a storm. The story of three lightkeepers whose bodies were never found after they disappeared in 1900 has been a mystery for more than 100 years.

Now they have been remembered as employment records of more than one thousand lightkeepers dating back more than 100 years have been published online for the first time. 

More than 2,000 scanned images of the records of the Northern Lighthouse Board give details of the 1,300 lightkeepers who worked in 92 lighthouses between 1837 and 1921. 

The records cover all of Scotland, from Muckle Flugga near Shetland to the most southerly at Drumore, Mull of Galloway.  

They also include Bell Rock, the world’s oldest working sea-washed lighthouse, and details of the three keepers of the Flannan Isles who vanished without trace following a storm in 1900. 

The employment data, held by the National records of Scotland, is now available to see online for the first time on genealogy website ScotlandsPeople. 

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Lightkeepers had hard working lives: long days and nights maintaining light and fog signals, as well as cleaning and ensuring the upkeep of their isolated stations in harsh conditions. 

Many keepers lived in cramped spaces for long periods, often with only basic washing facilities or toilets. They could be isolated from family and friends while they did their crucial work maintaining the safety of shipping around the Scottish coast. 

The Herald:

Bell Rock keepers on duty 

The records can either be studied by searching for a person’s name, or by looking at the individual lighthouse.  

Among those which can be viewed are the records of the Flannan lighthouse, the site of one of the most famous and ultimately unresolved. 

The lighthouse is situated on the largest of the island group on the 38-acre Eileen Mor (Big Island), 21 miles west of the Isles of Lewis. 

The Flannan Lighthouse was operational for a little over a year when the Keepers disappeared in December 1900. On 15th December, a passing steamer noted in its log that the light was not working. 

When a relief boat arrived, the station was found to be deserted, with the lamps trimmed and ready, the lens and machinery cleaned, the kitchen tidied and two sets of outdoor clothing missing. No trace of the men was ever discovered.

James Ducat was the Principal Lightkeeper on duty at the time. The Lightkeeper Registers shows he entered the service on 21st November 1878, aged 22.  

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As an Assistant Lightkeeper he worked at: Montroseness, Inchkeith, Rhins of Islay and Langness. On 2nd May 1896 he was promoted to Principal Keeper at Loch Ryan, and finally served on the Flannan Isles. The final entry in the register has noted underneath it, ‘Disappeared on or about 15 December 1900’. 

At the time, Ducat was serving with Assistant Lightkeeper Thomas Marshall, and Occasional Keeper Donald McArthur, who was covering the duty for another assistant keeper – William Ross – who was off sick. All disappeared. 

All three are recorded in the register of deaths for the district of Carloway, with the cause of death noted as ‘probably drowning’. 

The Herald:

The first record that something was abnormal on the Flannan Isles was on December 15 when the steamer Archtor, on a passage from Philadelphia to Leith, noted in its log that the light was not operational in poor weather conditions. When the ship docked in Leith on December 18, the sighting was passed on to the Northern Lighthouse Board. The relief vessel, the lighthouse tender Hesperus, was unable to sail from Breasclete, Lewis, as planned on December 20 due to adverse weather; it did not reach the island until noon on December 26.

On arrival, the crew of the Hesperus and the relief keeper found that the flagstaff had no flag, none of the usual provision boxes had been left on the landing stage for re-stocking, and more ominously, none of the lighthouse keepers were there to welcome them ashore. Jim Harvie, the captain of Hesperus, attempted to reach them by blowing the ship's whistle and firing a flare, but was unsuccessful.

A boat was launched and Joseph Moore, the relief keeper, was put ashore alone. He found the entrance gate to the compound and the main door both closed, the beds unmade, and the clock unwound. Returning to the landing stage with this grim news, he then went back up to the lighthouse with Hesperus's second-mate and a seaman. A further search revealed that the lamps had been cleaned and refilled. A set of oilskins was found, suggesting that one of the keepers had left the lighthouse without them. There was no sign of any of the keepers, neither inside the lighthouse nor anywhere on the island.

Jocelyn Grant, NRS Outreach and Learning archivist, said: “The last lighthouse was automated in 1998 and these records shine a light on the working lives of over 1,300 men in a profession that has now mostly passed into history. 

 “The Northern Lighthouse Board records are frequently requested by visitors to our buildings. If your ancestor worked in a Scottish lighthouse, there’s a good chance you will find them here.” 

 “This is the latest in a series of popular record sets added to the National Records of Scotland genealogy service ScotlandsPeople as part of our wider programme making more of our archive holdings accessible to people across the country and around the world.”