The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [104]
With Robert’s death and Alan’s decline, the business of the lighthouses was left entirely in the hands of David and Tom. Alan Brebner, one of Robert’s apprentices, whose father had worked on the Bell Rock, was appointed as deputy to the brothers, while David took over the role of chief engineer in Alan’s stead. His first task was a project so awkward it was to become known as his Skerryvore. By 1853, war with Russia was looking increasingly likely, and France and Britain were mustering troops. By the time of its conclusion two years later, the Crimean War had earned perpetual notoriety for the incompetence of its military leaders. The British aims in the war – to curtail Russian expansionism in the east and to cauterise the threat from France – were obscured by a catalogue of stupidities culminating in the Charge of the Light Brigade. At the time, however, Westminster was preoccupied with despatching a naval fleet to blockade the White Sea ports at Archangel and Murmansk. To do so meant a journey northwards through Scottish waters around the top of Norway and Lapland to Russian waters.
Following a tetchy correspondence between Trinity House, the Board of Trade and the Commissioners, it was concluded that the fleet would need at least two new lights around the north and east of Shetland to guide them through the stormy waters towards Scandinavia. David was therefore despatched northwards to establish sites and survey the ground. He set off at the beginning of March 1854, pursued by filthy weather. Twice, he tried to land on the northernmost Shetland isle, Unst, and twice he failed. He was not a man in the habit of overstatement, but his account of the trip and his findings dispensed with all the Stevensons’ usual rules of dispassionate summary. The journey was evidently so terrifying that David had spent much of it fearing for his life.
On returning to Edinburgh, he was adamant that the seas around the Shetland coast made building a lighthouse in the area impossible. ‘It is not practicable,’ he reported bluntly, ‘to erect and maintain a lighthouse upon these rocks’ It was too dangerous, he concluded, too expensive, and any ship that took that route was mad anyway. The passage between Orkney and Shetland was already well lit and it would be much more sensible for the convoys to make their way through the more placid route. ‘The maxim that it is better not to exhibit a light at all than to run the risk of any thing approaching to failure…must be regarded not only as a safe, but as a necessary rule in Lighthouse Engineering,’ he wrote emphatically. He had no choice. The Admiralty were insistent that the north coast must have lights, and no amount of prevarication by the NLB and its engineer was going to distract them from that purpose. The Admiralty, it must be noted, did not actually inspect the coast themselves, though they were uncomfortably aware of a disaster in 1811 during which three naval battleships (the 98-gun St George and two 74-gun ships) were shipwrecked in a North Sea storm while returning from the Baltic. Two thousand lives were lost, double that of the British naval losses during the Battle of Trafalgar.
David had no choice but to capitulate. In an extraordinary situation, he was forced to use extraordinary means. Accordingly, he recommended establishing a temporary light at Whalsey on the east, and at Lambaness, with the option of building a further light on North Unst. The Admiralty promptly overrode David’s reservations, insisting that North Unst was the most important site, irrespective of the dangers involved. Matters were not helped by a deputation of Elder Brethren from Trinity House, who arrived to view the site on a day of such