Kendal historian Arthur R Nicholls recounts the history of street lighting in Kendal

From sunset until dawn every day, Kendal was a dark, dreary and potentially dangerous place in which to walk about. The only lighting was from the link boys leading carriages or from house and shop windows.

When the shops closed and the curtains were drawn in the houses for the night, Kendal became "miserably dark" and one complainant declared that the streets were a cover for nefarious activities of thieves, robbers and the like.

The Kendal Fell Trust was formed in 1767 and one of its responsibilities was to light the town, which was divided into three parts for the purpose, Highgate, Stricklandgate, Stramongate and a few surrounding streets.

Oil lamps were placed on posts at suitable points or hung from lamp irons on the fronts of suitable house, probably those of prominent citizens. There were at first 45 lamps, including 10 in the Hospital and by the Moot Hall.

The burners were protected by glass globes and within a year these were the target of boys throwing stones at them. Vandalism is no new phenomenon.

In 1768 Samuel Dixon was fined 18 pence to pay for damage done by his boys breaking a lamp in the Market Place. In 1774 several lamps were broken and the post on Stramongate Bridge was thrown into the river.

Things had become so bad in 1805 that people were reminded that the Trust's Act of Parliament enforced a fine of twenty shillings on anyone caught or convicted of wilful damage.

Two men, Robert Tailford and Norman Newby, were appointed as lamplighters, whose task was to light the lamps at night, extinguish them at the designated time, to service them and find all the materials required. For this they were paid half a guinea a week.

It seems that they sometimes fell down on the job as Newby was fined 18 pence in 1771 for neglecting the lamps one Saturday night. Perhaps he had imbibed too deeply!

The lamps were lit only for short periods, mainly in the late autumn and winter but not every night even then.

They were lit from sunset until daybreak except when the moon had risen before ten when they were lit one hour after moonrise. It was obviously a waste to light the streets when the moon could do the job for you!

At the end of each season the lamps were taken down and stored for safety.

The lamps burnt oil seed rape oil at first, then brown spermaceti oil or whale oil.

A new era in street lighting came when gas was introduced in 1825. Permanent lamp pillars were constructed about 60 yards apart. The lamps were lit at similar times to the oil lamps but half of them were extinguished at midnight, the rest burned until 4am.

Of course, there were some who resented progress and said that the gas lighting was inferior to the oil. Further lamps were installed in other streets and today Kendal, with electricity, is as light at night as it is during the day.