First electric-powered lighthouse

South Foreland Lighthouse to the east of Dover, Kent, UK, became the first lighthouse with an electrical lamp during tests on 8 December 1858. The electro carbon arc lamp (developed by Frederick Hale Holmes) was powered by a steam-driven magneto-electric generator. The groundbreaking experiment was overseen by British scientist and electricity pioneer Michael Faraday, who at the time was Scientific Advisor to the lighthouse authority Trinity House.

Although the initial experiments were successful to a degree, Faraday and Holmes found several elements that they wanted to refine. The final electrical lamp was not installed and fully operational at South Foreland Lighthouse until 6 June 1862.

While South Foreland Lighthouse had to be retrofitted to work with electricity, the first lighthouse to be purpose built to be electric-powered was Souter Lighthouse in South Shields, UK, completed in 1871.

South Foreland Lighthouse was also the location of some major milestones in the field of radio communication. Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi received the first ship-to-shore transmission here on 24 December 1898 and, a few months later, on 27 March 1899, South Foreland received the first international radio transmission across the Channel from Wimereux in France.