Grace Horsley Darling was an English lighthouse keeper's daughter. Her participation in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked Forfarshire in 1838 brought her national fame. The paddlesteamer ran aground on the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland in northeast England; nine members of the crew were saved.
Portrait by Thomas Musgrave Joy
Effigy of Grace Darling, St Aidan's Church, Bamburgh
Lighthouse at Longstone: The upper window in the white ring was Grace Darling's bedroom, from which she saw the wreckage of the Forfarshire.
Grace Darling at the Forfarshire by Thomas Musgrave Joy
A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as "wickies" because of their job trimming the wicks.
Fanny May Salter, a lighthouse keeper in the United States Coast Guard service, polishes the lens in the Turkey Point Light, Maryland in 1945.
Cover of The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Jules Verne and Michel Verne, one of several fictional depictions (books and films) of the lives of lighthouse keepers.