Item from the year-book of the Trinity House Service 1984
An Eddystone Reading List Ballantyne, R.M. - The Story of the Rock (nd. ed c 1910) These publications range from the highly authoritative (Alison Barnes; Mike Palmer), through fictionalized accounts (Ingelow, Marshall, Murrell, Wood), to the smugly supercilious, silly and dismally uninformed (name withheld). Even the worst researched and sloppiest work, however, may contain some interest. R.M.Ballantyne's verdict on Henry Winstanley: "It must be said to the credit of this bold man, that after facing and overcoming, during six years, difficulties and dangers which up to that time had not been heard of, he finished his lighthouse, proved thereby the possibility of that which had been previously deemed impossible, and gave to mankind a noble example of enterprise, daring, and perseverance." It ought to be recognized by all that Winstanley had played the man, and lit a lasting candle. Unfortunately, Ballantyne oddly transposes Winstanley's 1697 kidnapping to Rudyerd. |
