Stevenson, ROBERT

Stevenson, ROBERT, a Scottish engineer, was born at Glasgow, 8th June 1772. His father died during his infancy; and his mother having (1786) married Thomas Smith, the first engineer of the Lighthouse Board, young Stevenson was led to devote himself to the study of engineering, in which his progress was so rapid that in 1791 he was entrusted by Smith with the erection of a lighthouse on Little Cumbrae. In 1796 he succeeded his step-father as engineer and inspector of lighthouses; and during his forty-seven years' tenure of that office he planned and constructed no fewer than twenty-three lighthouses round the Scottish coasts, employing the catoptric system of illumination, and his valuable invention of 'intermittent' and 'flashing' lights. The most remarkable of these erections was that on the Bell Rock (q.v.). In 1814 Stevenson was accompanied in his tour of inspection by Sir Walter Scott. Stevenson was also in great request as a consulting engineer in the matter of roads, bridges, harbours, canals, and railways, introduced many improvements in their construction, and occasionally co-operated with Rennie, Telford, and others. He died in Edinburgh, July 12, 1850. Stevenson left four volumes of professional printed reports, a large work on the Bell Rock Lighthouse, some articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica and in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. See the Life (Edin. 1878) by his son, David Stevenson, C.E. (1815-86).