The Lighthouse Stevensons: The Extraordinary Story of the Building of the Scottish Lighthouses by the Ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson

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I am an admitted lighthouse nut, so it would be very difficult for me not to enjoy Bathurst's work, but I would say to those who are unsure about reading an entire book on lighthouses: give this one a shot.

Black sheep Robert Louis did nae bad out of writing, but primarch Robert Stevenson was a force to be reckoned with. Either way, it is a very well told history of the family who was responsible for the construction of most of the lighthouses in Scotland, most of which are still standing. To build these towering structures in the most inhospitable places imaginable (such as the aptly named Cape Wrath), using only 19th-century technology is an achievement that beggars belief. For convenience and out of an appreciation of the working conditions the stones were cut to size and dressed off site, however the work had to be precise so the finished construction was waterproof and storm resistant. Though Robert’s mother initially hoped that he would become a minister, he ultimately followed in his step-father’s footsteps and was employed as an assistant to the engineer.How the family ran the business and became the driving force in lighthouse development is meticulously discussed in a tale that has one rivetted to the seat .

Robert showed himself as savvy at politicking as he was at engineering to be charged with the design and construction of the Bell Rock, the world’s old sea-washed lighthouse, located over ten miles off the eastern coast, effectively on a rock. Read on for the story of the ‘Lighthouse Stevensons’ and their invaluable contribution to lighting up Scotland’s coastlines. From Biographical Sketch of the Late Robert Stevenson: Civil Engineer, by Alan Stevenson (1807-1865). Eddystone, and Robert’s visit to see it, was to be an inspiration for the first major achievement of the Stevensons. Her illustrations appear in Alan Stevenson’s biography of his father: Biographical Sketches of the Late Robert Stevenson: Civil Engineer (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1861) – see below.

The Stevenson's were also responsible for lights in other parts of the world, and their engineering influenced lighthouse building everywhere. But Stevenson first trained as an engineer under his dad's direction, and he used his experience visiting and working at lighthouse sites for some of the activity and descriptions in his novels, such as "Kidnapped. Three of his sons, Alan (1807-1865), David (1815-1886) and Thomas (RLS’s father, 1818 – 1887) became lighthouse engineers as well. His mother remarried Thomas Smith, a lamp maker, mechanic and civil engineer who had been appointed to the inaugural Northern Lighthouse Board in 1786.