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By Root 751 0

and then confessed, ‘I would not have thought that I did right if I had not put this offer in your way.’ Between that time and Alan’s appointment, the post had remained open. Perhaps Robert had always intended that his son should fill it; perhaps, judging by his political thinking, he had offered it to his other assistants simply as a method of encouraging them to be more competitive. Whatever the reason, it was evident that Alan had paid his dues to the lights many times over. As he noted in his official address to the Commissioners, ‘I am therefore inclined to hope that I have enjoyed every opportunity of becoming professionally acquainted with the Engineers department of the Light House Service and I take the liberty of expressing my earnest desire in the event of my appointment to the situation of the Clerk of Works to fulfil with fidelity the trust committed to me.’ The Board appointed him unanimously on a salary of £150 per annum. His workload, already heavy, increased immediately. Six new lighthouses had to be planned, designed and built within the space of three years. Each one was scattered as far from the others as geographically possible. Somehow, through perseverance and efficiency, all the lights were finished on time.

And then in 1834 came Skerryvore. As public works, any new plan for the lighthouses had to lumber through a lengthy bureaucratic process before building could begin. The Commissioners had already gained parliamentary authority for the light, but they needed to have the construction money advanced, buy sufficient land from Tiree’s landlord, the Duke of Argyll, for a workyard and houses, and now, after the intervention of Sir Joseph Hume, have their plans vetted by the guardians of English lights. In September 1836, empowered by their new role as supervisors of the Scottish lights, a deputation from Trinity House made a trip out to the reef. The sea was pearlysmooth, the weather was fine and the Elder Brethren landed on the rock without so much as wetting their epaulettes. ‘A lighthouse no doubt can be built here without difficulty,’ the Brethren noted unconcernedly in their report, ‘as it is sufficiently large and high for the workmen to remain on the rock…The Commissioners are making preparation for the erection of a lighthouse on the largest Skerryvore, and it is probable that ere long the Court will be called on for an opinion on the subject.’ Finally, four years on from Robert’s survey, after the Elder Brethren had departed, after the Duke of Argyll had been petitioned for fifteen acres, and after the Skerryvore Committee had picked over the finances to its satisfaction, building was authorised to commence. On 22 February 1838, Robert Bruce, the Sheriff of Argyllshire, proposed to the Committee that Alan Stevenson, Clerk of Works, ‘was the most proper person to be employed as resident Engineer for the important works on the Rocks.’ His salary, accordingly, was to be supplemented with an extra six guineas a week forthwith.

During the summers of 1836 and 1837 Alan had been busy. As clerk of works he was responsible for overseeing the preliminary arrangements for the light, searching for a suitable quarry, purchasing land, constructing a harbour, hiring workmen, transporting materials, setting up houses and ensuring that the works were well stocked with the best materials. Alan reluctantly chose the bay of Hynish as the most suitable spot for the work-yard on the basis that it was the closest land to Skerryvore. He had few illusions about the site. The whole island of Tiree, he considered, was hopelessly exposed to the wind and the swell, and Hynish, however picturesque, was no better than the rest. But it was the only land from which the reef could be seen. He had no choice but to build there. ‘I know by too frequent experience,’ he acknowledged later, ‘that the embarkation in the Bay is a matter of great difficulty and hazard.’ One hundred and sixty years later, the islanders are still sour about his choice. The bay where Alan built his dock and sluice system, they point out, is prone