Four Livery Companies, The Clockmakers, The Lightmongers, The Scientific Instrument Makers and The Spectacle Makers, take it in turn to host a lecture/event. This year it was the turn of the Lightmongers to host the event and in our year the event is known as the Lightmongers William Wright lecture in honour of our much loved Past Master, who died far too young at the age of 63 and who had done so much for the company.

Members of all four Companies met at Festival Pier in the early evening of October 13th to embark on the river cruiser, MV Golden Salamander.

Waiting to embark the MV Golden Salamander

The theme was The Illuminating the Bridges Project – this project is to re-light the bridges across the Thames in a coordinated way and with links to their locations. It is known as the longest art installation in the world. It has been taking place in phases, with some disruption from COVID.

Master Lightmonger, Margaret Fitzsimons gave a speech of welcome to all the guests and a brief history of the 4 Liveries lecture, explaining that the Companies had decided to expand the scope beyond lectures, to include e.g., events, and this is the first of those.

Dr James Nye, FSA – Master Clockmaker; Nigel Haig-Brown – Master Spectacle Maker; Margaret Fitzsimons – Master Lightmonger; Charles Holroyd – Master Scientific Instrument Maker.

Past Master Mike Simpson, who has been involved in the project, gave a talk about it, including some amusing anecdotes about incidents that the project engineers had experienced during the installations. The talk was much appreciated by the 100 attendees from across the 4 Livery Companies and enabled them to appreciate the lighting of the bridges with a better understanding of the design intent.

The river cruise went upriver beyond the Battersea Power Station development and down beyond Tower bridge a couple of times to allow those attending plenty of time to admire not only the lighting of the bridges but also all the other lighting along both sides of the river.

During the cruise a buffet supper was served and there was plenty of time for networking and catching up with friends and colleagues.

As the cruise drew to an end, the Master Spectacle Maker, Nigel Haig-Brown, whose Company will be giving the lecture/event next year, gave a vote of thanks to the Lightmongers for organising an enjoyable and informative event.