Dr Ken Trethewey is a marine engineer and specialist in corrosion. He has been studying lighthouses since he was 13 years old when he discovered that he is a descendant of the famous Knott family of lighthouse keepers. William Knott was the first to serve at South Foreland in 1730, and he was followed by four further generations of his family, who ended their service in 1911. Ken's great-great grandfather served at both South Foreland and at the Eddystone lighthouses.

In 1992, Ken co-founded the Lighthouse Society of Great Britain, which provided information about lighthouses and their keepers to the public, free-of-charge, for 13 years. He created one of the first lighthouse information websites in 1995, the now defunct lsgb.co.uk. From 1998 onwards he published eight annual editions of the Lighthouse Encyclopaedia on CD-ROM. Later he was one of the founder members of the World Lighthouse Society. In 2002 he collaborated with Jean Guichard in the production of the book North Atlantic Lighthouses. Ken has travelled the world to visit lighthouses and this website is the distillation of some fifty years of his lighthouse activities.

Besides lighthouses, his other interest is jazz, and he now publishes jazz books. His new book "Lighthouses" will be published in the near future.