The Amédée Lighthouse (french: Phare Amédée) is an iron lighthouse located on Amédée Island in New Caledonia, from

Nouméa Nouméa () is the capital and largest city of the French special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and ...

on Grande Terre. The metal components were made by Rigolet in North-East Paris in 1862 and the tower was constructed in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

as a demonstration. It was then disassembled into pieces weighing a total of and transported along the

River Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

to the port of

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...

for its voyage to New Caledonia. At tall, with 247 steps, it is one of the tallest lighthouses in the world and it was the first metallic lighthouse constructed in France. Its foundation stone was laid on 18 January 1865 and it was first lit on 15 November 1865, the saint day of the

Empress Eugénie An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...

, wife of

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

. Its light signals the entrance to the passage of Boulari, one of only three natural passages in the

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock o ...

surrounding New Caledonia. On the other side of the world, the original

Roches-Douvres Light Roches-Douvres Light is an active lighthouse in Côtes-d'Armor, France built atop a 5-story elliptical stone dwelling. At a height of According to the ''List of Lights''. according to ''The Lighthouse Directory''. 58 m according to ''phare ...

in the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

was the twin of the Amédée Lighthouse. It is now a very popular tourist attraction.

History

278 Spirialling Steps of the Amedee Lighthouse

In 1859, the acting Commandant of New Caledonia, Jean-Marie Saisset, asked the government in Paris to build a lighthouse to help ships navigating into the port of

(then Fort-de-France), particularly as the colony had been chosen as a new destination for French convicts.30,000 candles for the 140th anniversary of the Amédée lighthouse

Ifremer IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer; ) is an oceanographic institution in Brest, France. Scope of works Ifremer focuses its research activities in the following areas: * Monitoring, use and enhancement of coa ...

article, 5 September 2005 Taking into account the lack of stonemasons and other skilled workers in the colony, the French lighthouse commission proposed a pre-fabricated iron design, a relatively new method first used in 1841 by the British consulting engineer Alexander Gordon for the

Morant Point Lighthouse Morant Point Lighthouse is on the easternmost tip of Jamaica, and is the oldest lighthouse on the island. Description Erected in 1841 by Kru men from Africa (who were among the free Africans brought to Jamaica in the period following emancipation ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. The French Minister for the Navy and the Colonies,

Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat Justin Napoléon Samuel Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat, 4th Marquis of Chasseloup-Laubat (29 May 1805, Alessandria, Department of Marengo, French Empire – 29 March 1873, Paris, France) was a French aristocrat and politician who became Ministe ...

, approved the project and appointed Léonce Reynaud, who had already designed many lighthouses and who had also designed the original Gare du Nord in

, to oversee it. Reynaud followed Gordon in making the pieces out of puddled iron, and in keeping the lighthouse narrow enough to be constructed without

scaffolding Scaffolding, also called scaffold or staging, is a temporary structure used to support a work crew and materials to aid in the construction, maintenance and repair of buildings, bridges and all other man-made structures. Scaffolds are widely use ...

. He innovated by keeping the internal structure independent of the external envelope: this was intended as protection against corrosion in the humid tropical environment for which he was designing the lighthouse. The plans were exhibited at the

1862 International Exhibition The International Exhibition of 1862, or Great London Exposition, was a world's fair. It was held from 1 May to 1 November 1862, beside the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, South Kensington, London, England, on a site that now houses ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. The metalwork was fabricated in four months by Rigolet, who were then required to construct the tower near their works in the

19th arrondissement of Paris The 19th arrondissement of Paris (''XIXe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''dix-neuvième''. The arrondissement, known as Butte-Chaumont, ...

as a demonstration of its stability. The lighthouse remained in Paris from July 1862 to June 1864 and became a popular destination for Parisians’ walks. The pieces, packed in 1,200 crates and weighing , were transported to

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

and then shipped to New Caledonia, arriving in November 1864. The lighthouse was constructed on Amédée island by a mixed team of French soldiers and local workers under the direction of

Louis-Émile Bertin Louis-Émile Bertin (23 March 1840 – 22 October 1924) was a French naval engineer, one of the foremost of his time, and a proponent of the " Jeune École" philosophy of using light, but powerfully armed warships instead of large battleships. ...

, later to be a major naval architect both for France and for Japan. It was lit for the first time on 15 November 1865, the saint's day of the

, wife of Napoléon III.

Important Bird Area

The Amédée Island has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a breeding

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state' ...

of some 240

fairy tern The fairy tern (''Sternula nereis'') is a small tern which is native to the southwestern Pacific. It is listed as " Vulnerable" by the IUCN and the New Zealand subspecies is " Critically Endangered". There are three subspecies: * Australian fai ...

s, as estimated in 2012.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Amedee Lighthouse Lighthouses completed in 1865 Lighthouses in New Caledonia Buildings and structures in Nouméa 1865 establishments in the French colonial empire Important Bird Areas of New Caledonia Seabird colonies

History

Important Bird Area

See also

References

External links