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

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And preachers would tell them on Sunday, "It's the will of god to put rocks there and to send ships to be battered against them. Robert Stevenson is the crux of the story as a civil engineer in the early 19th century whose masterpiece, Bell's Rock, set his reputation. What is staying with me, beside the success of the family with near impossible projects, is that the author, Bella Bathhurst, has snatched this story from being forgotten as she makes a point of the beauty of Victorian engineering and, while understanding the path that demanning lighthouses and computerizing keepers' jobs was inevitable, mourns the grace and human touch of the original sphere of lighthouse life.

But aside from a natural desire to read about nineteenth century civil engineering cruelly destroying the economies of local communities that benefited from wrecked ships and an understandable compulsion to know how a 19th century engineer monetised and publicised their work we're reading to understand Robert Louis Stevenson, a book like this and Bathurst says that he was the Stevenson she was most in love with, is part of the archaeology of his (un)consciousness and mental world. 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. Finally, we are introduced to Alan Stevenson's son, David Alan (1854 - 1938), who unlike his literary-inclined cousin - Robert Louis was Tom's only son - follows in the family's footsteps and builds his own legacy in the Dubh Artach Light.Robert Stevenson’s father, Alan, died and his widow married Thomas Smith, a lampmaker, appointed to the recently instantiated NLB. Anyone who was involved in the buildings of these lighthouse must have not only great patience, but great strength. The workforce suffered from sea sickness and inadequate quantities of beer, traditionally lighthouse keepers were expected to maintain a cow and fend for themselves, Skerryvore was so difficult to reach that instead Alan recommended enhanced rations for the lighthouse keepers. The Stevensons started to merge into one for me, and I had trouble remembering which was Muckle Flugga and which was Skerryvore and which Stevenson built which.

For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. Bathurst takes us into some of their crowning achievements, notably the even more perilous and dramatic construction of Skerryvore, fourteen miles off Tiree, itself on the western reaches of the Hebrides archipelago. The way the builders "lived" in temporary "rocket barracks" was very interesting if dangerous and unpleasant! Any account of so many achievements would likely run to many volumes and, no doubt, be a dry affair.It's hard to imagine this book being any better than it is, for what it is--the fascinating story of an extended family that took it upon themselves to make the wild coast of Scotland safer for centuries of mariners. The family had a mild tendency to be obsessed by thoughts of a cruel and vindictive God, Alan felt his disease was punishment for making people work on Sundays to complete Skerryvore faster. Bella Bathurst's inspiring account of the men who planned and built the lighthouses is gripping reading. The same driven energy which Robert Louis Stevenson put into writing, his ancestors put into lighting the darkness of the seas. This connection soon led to his adoption as Smith’s partner, which he enjoyed until his appointment as Sole Engineer in 1808.