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By Root 706 0

’ In thirty years, Rennie took one holiday, a trip to France during which he spent most of his time gathering information on Napoleon’s docks and harbour works. He, like Robert, had learned his trade through the practice of it; he, like Robert, had the same belief in experiment and discovery which characterised engineering at the time. Like Robert, he had also come up against the intransigence of those in power, and was well used to scepticism and obstruction. Smiles recounts the comment of one of Rennie’s friends. ‘What I liked about Rennie,’ said the man, ‘was his severe truthfulness.’ The Commissioners of Northern Lights, scanning the narrow lists of well-known engineers, found in Rennie a perfect solution. He had, as yet, no experience of building lighthouses, but his skill with bridges and marine works and his ability to turn his mind to anything were recommendation enough.

Robert, meanwhile, was torn between wariness, delight and piqued ambition. Rennie’s appearance was evidently dispelling the last doubts of the Commissioners. And yet Rennie’s confidence seemed to have cancelled Robert’s hopes of building the light. He knew he would be involved in the works in some capacity, but as the Commissioners’ enthusiasm grew, his own faltered. A friend who wrote to congratulate him on the progress of the project received a jaded reply. ‘Your congratulations relative to the Bell Rock business I am sensible of, but…I have certainly bestirred myself in this business for eight or nine years. Yet now, when the matter seems at hand, I look forward with much anxiety to the personal dangers and numberless difficulties which must be struggled with by all engaged in this work.’ Robert battled for months with his competing demons; the knowledge that he was himself only the paid employee of the Commissioners, the belief that Rennie was indeed the most suitable man for the job, and his own unshakeable certainty that he alone understood the subtleties of the Bell Rock. He was a professional man, and should conduct himself as such, but he also nursed a fierce ambition for his dreams.

In December 1805, Robert wrote almost sorrowfully to Rennie, enclosing a copy of his plans and remarking that the Bell Rock was ‘a subject which has cost me much, very much, trouble and consideration…should you wish any explanation or further enquiries in which you can employ me, everything shall be allowed to stand in order to further your views.’ At the same time, he began a little diplomacy with the Commissioners. As he wrote to Alex Cunningham, Secretary to the NLB, he had been in touch with Rennie ‘stating that it was thought he would consider this as a situation where the personal danger was so great and the difficulties to be struggled with so many as to be entitled to at least double what is paid for Sea works on the Shore which I think was exactly your ideas upon a subject which much interests my Family and future prospects, I may say, in life.’ The Commissioners seemed unimpressed with the possible dangers to Rennie’s health and stayed silent. From time to time, Robert presented a further plan or report, urging himself on the Commissioners’ attention as often as possible. The Commissioners noted his contributions and then ignored them. But Robert had no intention of giving up.

Initially Rennie was asked to provide a survey and report, and to give his recommendations on the most suitable structure for the reef. Despite being thoroughly seasick on his way to the rock, he, like Robert, concluded that it would be practical to build a substantial structure on the Bell Rock . ‘I have,’ he wrote in his report to the Commissioners, ‘no hesitation in giving a decided opinion in favour of a stone lighthouse.’ He also estimated that it would cost around £41,840, only a few hundred pounds less than Robert had calculated, and dismissed Telford’s brief assessment as farcically inaccurate. ‘He has,’ he wrote to Robert, ‘no originality of thoughts, and has all his life built the little fame he has acquired upon the talent of others, which he has generally assumed