A rushlight is a long, thin, tallow candle with a grease-saturated rush serving as a fuel reservoir and wick. The rushlight cannot be burned upright because it would burn too quickly; it has to be at an angle. The simplest kind of holder is made by splitting a stick and placing the rush diagonally in the opening. Unlike candles, the rushlight cannot be left burning for more than a few minutes without attention.
A rush candle uses a rush instead of a cotton wick. The rushes are saturated with tallow and a thick coating is formed by successive dippings. They resemble ordinary candles.
Reprinted from The Rushlight Journal, May 1959
In Volume V, Number 4 of The Rushlight the writer of the article "Rushlights vs Rush Candles" attempted to present evidence from such sources as Ware's ANTIQUITIES OF IRELAND, Cobbett's COTTAGE ECONOMY, White's NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORN, Jekyll's OLD WEST SURREY and Hough in BULLETIN 141 that a rushlight is a rush pith saturated with fat of some sort but without any external coating of tallow or other hard fat of considerable thickness, acquired by being dipped in melted fat in the usual manner of making dipped candles.
Recently, in an English text, COUNTRY RELICS by H. J. Massingham, the familiar type of rushlight holder with jaws and a candle socket on the end of the movable member is illustrated, and the statement made that "between the jaws a peeled rush 12 to 15 inches long is inserted and that the candle socket is for a rush candle made by the same process as the rushlight but more thickly coated with grease". Although this might be interpreted to mean that the rushlight is at least lightly coated further reference in the instructions of Rev. White for preparing rushes shows that the author recognizes the above distinction.
Webster's NEW WORLD DICTIONARY defines the rush candle as "a candle made with the pith of a rush as the wick". and then adds "rushlight" as equivalent. Here is confusion with apparent background of authority.
When one turns to writers who might be expected to know, the terms are loosely used or even interchanged. Dickens in "GREAT EXPECTATIONS" tells of a "night-light" as "the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous days, an object like the ghost of a walking cane, which instantly broke its back if touched, which nothing could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower perforated with round holes....". In PICKWICK PAPERS he wrote, "Mr. Winkle lighted a flat candle from the rush-light that was burning in the fireplace". In the first reference the description appears to be that of a rushlight but the circumstances indicate rush candles. The gentlemen had gone to bed and left lights to be burned for a considerable time. A rushlight cannot be left for more than a few minutes without attention.
Finally, J. Romilly Allen in Volume X, 1888, of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIANS OF SCOTLAND under the title "Rush Candles" quotes the familiar directions of Gilbert White for making rushlights and then says, "The rush candle is too long and not sufficiently rigid to stand in a socket and therefore has to be supported by a special contrivance while burning. The simplest kind of holder, however, is made by splitting a stick and placing the rush diagonally in the cleft." He then defines the rush light thus: "A rushlight is a tallow candle with a rush in the middle of it instead of a cotton wick. The rushes are prepared in the same way as in the case of a rush candle but instead of being dipped in molten grease so as to absorb it, they are coated with tallow by several successive dippings. The rush wick also has two ribs of peel left on each to support the pith instead of one. the object being to retard combustion."
Perhaps the Rushlight Club can render a service by adhering to and spreading the definitions that make the rushlight a grease-saturated rush pith, and a rushcandle one that has a rush wick and otherwise conforms to the common understanding of the term candle. Any wick coated with hard fat or wax is thus a candle, but for long, thin candles and the coated wick used for lighting gas the term taper is more often used.
E. B. R. (Prof. Edwin B. Rollins)