The minute of March 6th, 1788, noted that Thomas Smith, the engineer, had been ordered to, " go west to put on the lantern of Kantyre Lighthouse immediately." In June his report came back that the lantern was finished and ready for use, but that various work was still required. "That the ground allotted for the keeper, except a very small spot, can be of no manner of use to him as nothing will grow, but there is tolerable good ground at a small distance which would be of great use and that the present allotment is not worth the enclosing. That the person to be employed as keeper should be fixed on immediately, and measures taken for his subsistence during the winter as he will be totally removed from Society and must have time to win Peats." He also reported that it was absolutely necessary to have a wall between the lighthouse and the sea, "to prevent the keeper or any of his family from being blown over by strong winds."

On 1st November, 1788, two years and three months after the first meeting, the light was first exhibited at the Mull of Kintyre. One of the early lanterns used in this first tower hangs in the Campbeltown Museum. There is a notice beneath it which reads as follows - "For many years before 1788 a crofter who cultivated Harvey's Acres kept a light in his window as a guide to shipping." So far I have not found any recorded facts to fill in the details of this custom. The name "Harvey's Acres" does not appear in Forbes MacKay's "MacNiell of Carskiey" or in Andrew McKerral's "Kintyre in the Seventeenth Century". It would be interesting to know when this name was first used, and to what ground it refers. Could it be that the garden ground going with the lighthouse, which was in fact in Harvey's hands from 1788 to 1843, became known as "Harvey's Acres" and that the crofter who kept the light as a guide to shipping cultivated these acres before they were leased to the lighthouse by the Duke of Argyle, possibly the tenant of either Ballinamoil or Ballemakilchonnele? Although the Mull was, apparently, cleared for a sheep walk circa 1780, one or two houses must have remained occupied by shepherds.

The notice in the Museum also states that, "Matthew Harvey, son of the crofter, was the lighthouse keeper for 35 years from 1788." This is not entirely accurate. William, and not Matthew, was the first keeper and is first mentioned by name in the minutes of 10th June, 1792, which noted that an order was drawn "for paying Wm. Harvie Keeper at Cantyre his salary to March 1791 £30:16:8." He was born in 1738 and died in November 1800 and before he joined the Lighthouse Service, was Master of a brig named the "King George" sailing from Greenock. I have so far failed to find written records of his parents.

There is an interesting reference to the Keeper of the Kintyre Lighthouse in the report which Thomas Smith gave to the Commissioners after he had made a tour of inspection of the lighthouses between June 11th and September 6th, 1793. "This keeper is much molested by the Moil Company who insist that he shall not keep a dog or a gun, which I think is necessary as the place is infested with wild cats which are dangerous, and notwithstanding the fences around his ground, the goats and also the sheep belonging to the same Company leap over the walls to destroy his crop and without he is allowed a dog to protect his own ground it may be of little use to him. They seem to treat the man as if he were a thief or a sheep stealer, and insist upon it that they have a right to prevent him from keeping a dog or a gun by their agreement with the Duke of Argyle. For my own part I think him an honest man and that he would not make any improper use either of his dog or gun. If he cannot be trusted with this he surely ought not to have such an important Trust as the Lighthouse." The minute states that the Commissioners wrote to the doers of the Duke of Argyle about the dog and then the question does not reappear - presumably because it was satisfactorily settled and Mr. Harvey was allowed to have his dog.

He must have maintained his reputation as an honest man, because not only did he remain as keeper for 12 years until his death in 1800, but his wife, assisted by his son, was kept on as keeper and in 1802 there is a note that the Commissioners "resolved to continue the widow and the son of the late keeper in the lighthouse on the Mull of Cantyre as joint keepers thereof and to authorise the Clerk to relinquish the claim of £10 10s. which had by mistake been overpaid to the late keeper by the agent at Campbeltown." This son, Matthew, became Principal Lighthouse Keeper and remained so until 1843. It was resolved in 1807 that each keeper should keep an assistant, and his salary was therefore raised by £10 per annum.

There is no record of how the Commissioners chose their keepers, but they must have felt very satisfied with the choice of William Harvey. Not only did he and his son Matthew hive 55 years of continuous service at the Mull, but his grandson, also called Matthew, entered the lighthouse service in 1845, two years after his father's retiral, and served in various lighthouses until 1892, eleven of those years, between 1854 and 1865, as keeper at the Mull. Matthew senior, who retired in 1843, lived until he was almost 91 and died in 1867. He, like his father, was a man of upright and hard-working character and the following anecdote from his obituary in a contemporary newspaper illustrates the man and the toughness of his working life on the Mull. "Now the subject of our sketch was none of your eye servants, as the following incident will show. The road had been finished, with it's bridges over deep ravines, and it's dry firm footing over morasses and quagmires, but not formally opened, and the stores were still carried along the winding sheep tracks. Our friend was asked why he was not using the road? The simple yet firm reply was, ' The Commissioners had not given orders for that yet '."