Tradition tells us, that so far back as the four teenth century, the monks of Aberbrothick caused.a large bell to be suspended, by some means or other, upon the Rock, to which the waves of the sea gave motion, the tolling of the bell warning the mariner of his approaching danger. From this circumstance it is said the Rock got its present name, but in so far as can now be discovered, there is no record of this contrivance ; and it seems more probable that, at an early period before the wasting effects of the sea had brought the Rock into a state so low and mutilat ed, some part of it may have resembled a bell in ap pearance, and have thus given rise to the name.
Although the dangers and the inconveniences of this Rock, and of the coast in general, were long and severely felt by the shipping of the eastern coast of Great Britain ; yet, till of late, there was no con stituted body for the erection of light-houses in Scotland ; such an appointment necessarily sup poses a more extensive trade than that part of the united kingdom possessed prior to the union of England and Scotland ; and even long after that happy event, the finances of the country were not in a state to warrant expensive undertakings of this nature. About the middle of the last century, how ever, when the improvement of the highlands and islands of Scotland was viewed as an object of great national importance, the establishment of light houses upon that coast was found indispensably ne cessary to the extension and success of the British Fisheries. This subject was accordingly agitated in the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland ; and, in the year 1786, a bill was brought into Par , •liament, appointing the Lord Advocate and Solici tor-General of Scotland, the Shetiffs•depute of the maritime counties, and the chief Magistrates of cer tain of the Royal Burghs, ex officio, to act un der the title of the Commissioners of the Northern Light-houses ; and a certain duty on tonnage upon shipping was granted to them, for the erection and maintenance of such light-houses as they should find necessary to erect upon the coast of Scotland. But when a sufficient number of Light-houses are erected upon the coast, and a fund accumulated for their maintenance, the act provides, that the light house duties shall cease and determine. These Commissioners, in virtue of the powers vested in them, proceeded to the immediate improvement of such accessible points of the coast as suited the in fant state of their funds; and, in the course of a few years, eight of the principal headlands between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, including the Orkney Islands, were provided with light-houses, erected upon the most approved principles of the time, by the late Mr Smith, engineer for the Light house Board. Keeping always in view as a principal
object the erection of a light-house on the Bell Rock, the Commissioners, independently of these highly useful and important works, were gradually accumulating a fund for this purpose, in order to undertake that work as soon as their limited means would admit. In the month of December 1799, the occurrence of a dreadful storm rather tended to hasten this measure. The wind for two days was excessive, and being from the south-eastern direc all the ships were driven from their moorings in the Downs and Yarmouth Roads. No fewer than about 70 vessels were wrecked, and with many of their crews were totally lost, upon the eastern coast of Scotland; a calamity that more especially direct ed the attention of the country and of the Com missioners, to the erection of a light-house upon this Rock ; as, in this particular instance, a light house there would have opened the Firth of Forth, as a place of safety to many, which, to avoid the hidden dangers of the Rock, were lost in attempting to get to the northward of the Firth in this storm.
ed both Houses, in the /session of 1806; by which the 'northern light •fluty of three halfpence per ton on Brithih vessels, and threepence per ton on foreign bottoms, was extended to all vessels sidl ing to or from any port between Peterhead to the north, and Berwidk-upon-Tweed to the southward. This bill also empowered the nototnissioners to bor row L. 25,000 from the three per cent. consols, and having already accumulated the sum of L. 20,000 of surplus duties, with this loan from Government they were enabled to commence the operations at the Bell Rock with a disposable fund of L. 45,000.