LYR Flare Lamp

I have acquired this flare lamp and I was wondering if anyone has any information about it.
I would particularly like to know the following:-
What exactly was it used for and over what period?
Does the "WIGAN LOCO No 5" relate to a particular loco or does it relate to Wigan loco depot if there was one? I know of Springs Branch depot but not one called Wigan.
There is a pin that screws into the wick in the spout. I have seen similar flare lamps on e-bay etc but none with this securing pin. Why does this lamp have one?
Any other information would be greatly appreciated.
TYIA

 

Springs Branch was the ex LNW shed. Wigan was the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway shed located close to where the lines from Wallgate divided for Liverpool and Southport and closed in 1964. Flare lamps were used by drivers when oiling up or inspecting their loco in the hours of darkness or by fitters when carrying out maintenance. They were used right through to the end of steam in 1968 but by then they were made of steel tinplate so I suspect yours is from an earlier era and certainly made before 1922/3. I'm not sure about the significance of the No5, unlikely to be a loco number, so perhaps just a reference for the storeman when he issued the lamp. Yours may have survived because gauge lamps and possibly flare lamps were taken home by crews and used to prevent the outside toilet cistern freezing up in winter.
There was also a third, smaller, loco depot at Lower Ince which served ex Great Central Railway trains out of Wigan Central station until 1952.
Hope this helps.
Ray.

 

As @marshall5 suggests, my gut feeling is that the number is a stores inventory number, used to help keep track of items for which many would be in use. The railway companies seemed to compile numbered lists of practically everything (he says, checking the time on Southern Railway clock No. 10850 ...)

Tom

 

Its still the case with any large organisation and asset registers, one only has to look at the bar codes stuck to everything at northern stations, likewise when I worked at BW every asset has a reference all recorded on a data base.