A lamplighter, historically, was an employee of a town who lit gas street lights, generally by means of a wick on a long pole. At dawn, he would return and turn them off using a small hook on the same pole. From time to time, he would come along with a ladder and renew the mantles. In some communities, lamplighters served in a role akin to a town watchman; in others, it may have been seen as little more than a sinecure. There is a long history of the role of a lamplighter-as-lightbringer as a symbolic figure in literature.

• The Lamplighter was an 1854 novel by Maria Susanna Cummins.
• A lamplighter, never actually seen, is the central figure in Bolesław Prus' 1885 micro-story, "Shades."
• The Lamplighter was a 1929 collection of poems by Irish poet Seamus O'Sullivan.
• A lamplighter who lives on an asteroid that rotates once a minute was one of the inhabitants of the universe in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novel, The Little Prince.
• "Lamplighters" are referred to in John Le Carré's novels, notably Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), and Smiley's People (1979), frequently associated with their boss, Toby Esterhase; their job is to carry out surveillance.
• "Lamplighter" was a 1987 children's story by Bernice Thurman Hunter.
• "The Lamplighter" was a Golden Age superhero in Kurt Busiek's Astro City comic books.

• "Lamplighter" is a historic nightclub in Vancouver.

• L. Jagi Lamplighter is an American science fiction writer.

• "Lamplighters" is a bar in Palatine, IL

• "Lamplighters" is the musical-theatre performing branch of the Opera West Foundation, based in San Francisco, CA. The group was founded in 1952 and to this day continues to bring Gilbert and Sullivan operettas to Bay Area audiences.
• Lamplighter is the title of the (as-yet unreleased) second book in fantasy author D.M. Cornish's trilogy Monster Blood Tattoo.

Defunct occupations | Lantaarnopsteker | Latarnik