The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [80]
Despite all his efforts to do his father’s bidding, Alan could never entirely dampen his pleasure in the outside world. Travel brought out his romantic habits. Away from the suppressions of Edinburgh, he developed a sharp eye and a talent for details. Much of his time abroad was spent working, touring lighthouses in France, canals and bridges in Stockholm or roads in Moscow on the instruction of Robert or the Commissioners. While he remained away from home, Alan knew that Robert would be sitting irritably at home in Baxter Street, fussing over his studies and fearing for his morals. Confined within his father’s expectations so much of the time, he did what most clever children do and turned himself into an astute psychologist. He learned to speak Robert’s language and realised that the best way of pacifying him was to anticipate his worries. He would write home often, giving descriptions of the works he had seen and the people he had met and inserting the odd reassuring allusion to Robert’s works. He compared the superiority of Scottish engineering to the pathetic specimens he found abroad, made disparaging mention of Popish practices and usually concluded with a homesick joke or two. He was usually careful to include a brief account of his attendance at church, and to pick up on a couple of points from the sermon. If he was tempted to quote poetry, he confined it to short bursts of Sir Walter Scott. Sometime in 1827, he changed abruptly from signing himself, ‘your most loving son’, to ‘your most dutiful son’.
Aside from feeding his restless mind, travel addressed something more straightforward. Alan was, and always would be, prone to sickliness. As for his nephew Louis many years later, time spent abroad was also time spent chasing health. Travel was Alan’s self-administered medicine. His letters from abroad rarely mention illness, but at home in Scotland his work was blighted by intervals confined to bed. It was not an argument
The Isle of May, Scotland’s first lighthouse, was built in 1636; it featured a coal-fired brazier on top and a winch for hauling up fuel.
Winstanley’s Eddystone lighthouse, completed in 1699 and destroyed in 1703 by a storm in which Winstanley himself was drowned.
Smeaton’s Eddystone lighthouse, with its dovetailed stone courses, was completed in 1759 and became a model for further lighthouse construction.
John Rennie’s design for the Bell Rock shows similarities to Smeaton’s Eddystone design.
Below Robert Stevenson’s design for the Bell Rock light, completed in 1811.
Right Cross-section of the Bell Rock.
Robert Stevenson, head of the Stevenson engineering dynasty, 1814.
Above The Bell Rock light room, with its system of reflectors and winding mechanism.
Right Robert Stevenson in later life, ‘a man of the most zealous industry, greedy of occupation, greedy of knowledge…unflagging in his task of self-improvement’.
J.M.W. Turner’s illustration of the Bell Rock during a storm, commissioned by Robert Stevenson.
Alan Stevenson’s Skerryvore light, completed in 1844.
Inset The only known portrait of Alan Stevenson.
Cross-section of Skerryvore, showing details of the 97 stonework courses.
The temporary barracks at Skerryvore, rebuilt after the original structure was destroyed by gales.
Alan’s design for Ardnamurchan, Scotland’s only Egyptian-style lighthouse.
Above The impossible lighthouse, Muckle Flugga, built in 1854 by David Stevenson at Scotland’s most northerly point to guide British naval convoys on their way to the Crimea.
Right David Stevenson, 1815-1886.
Left Thomas Stevenson, ‘a man of somewhat antique strain…shrewd and childish, passionately attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes’.
Below Robert Louis Stevenson,