Gas lighter. Image courtesy Moreland City Libraries. Lantern slide no.352.
I'm not sure of the identity of this lamp lighter, but his duties were to light the street lights of an evening then turn them off later in the night.
Coburg's stock inspector in the early 1900s was one-armed James Deeker, who also acted as the Coburg Council's part-time lamp lighter. It must have been a tricky task for a one-armed man and it involved later hours - he'd light the lamps each night at nightfall then turn them off at midnight, presumably then riding home in the dark.
