First discovered by the Cornishman Goldsworthy Gurney in 1826, limelight was sometimes called the Drummond Light, because during a survey of Ireland Thomas Drummond found that when he used limelight with a parabolic reflector he could signal 95 miles from Antrim to Ben Lomond. In the early 1820s Gurney had invented an oxygen-hydrogen blowpipe, which produced an exceedingly hot flame, and he began experimenting with various materials to see what he could do with it. He discovered that when he played this flame on to lime, especially with a little added magnesia; it produced an intense white light. Today the simplest material to use is a stick of blackboard chalk; when introduced into the oxygen-hydrogen (lame, it quickly begins to glow; and within a few seconds the light becomes dazzling - not as fierce or blinding as an arc light, but nevertheless extremely bright. As with the arc lamp, there are some problems, because the lime is gradually burned away, but limelight is much easier to handle than an arc lamp and it needs no electricity. By the 1860s limelight had become the standard for stage lighting, especially for the sun and for follow-spots - hence the phrase 'in the limelight'. Limelight was used in London theatres for fifty years, and to this day spotlights in theatres are known as 'limes'.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/Limelight_diagram.PNG)
So this tends to pre date Yule Brown by over 100 years
