12 December 2023
Cathy Marsden
From the birth of Robert Stevenson to the Death of D. Alan Stevenson, the Stevenson Collection (lots 61-111) encompasses 200 years of provenance from one of Scotland’s best-known families.
Join Head of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Maps Cathy Marsden as she takes a closer look at the history of the family and the collection, to be offered in our February 2024 auction of Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs.
Robert Stevenson, 1772-1850, was born in Glasgow. As his father passed away when he was still only a toddler, his former education was provided by the local charity school. Stevenson’s mother remarried when he was a teenager, and Stevenson’s step-father, Thomas Smith, took the boy under his wing, apprenticing him as a civil engineer with his firm. Stevenson was exceptionally talented, working as a supervisor for the erection of the Little Cumbrae Lighthouse by the time he was 19.
Robert Stevenson built nineteen lighthouses, including the Bell Rock Lighthouse – arguably his most impressive construction. Established in 1811, with building commencing in 1807, it is the oldest working rock lighthouse in the United Kingdom and an impressive feat of engineering. A sea-washed lighthouse, the Bell Rock Lighthouse is built upon a long and treacherous reef off the coast of Arbroath, with the rock only exposed at low tide. A stunning illustrated manuscript, to be sold in our February 2024 Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs sale, is entitled ‘Signals from the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the Arbroath Signal Tower’ and, through 28 hand-drawn and coloured illustrations, it demonstrates the workings of the lighthouse’s copper signal ball and flags. The main method of signalling between the lighthouse and the signal tower were large copper balls, which would be raised in the morning to indicate all was well.
A large quantity of archive material, to be included in the February auction, tells the story of the Stevenson family, and Robert’s and David’s plans and negotiations whilst designing and building their constructions. A close family, some material also relates to Robert Stevenson’s grandson, Robert Louis Stevenson. These items include a letter sent from the yacht ‘The Heron’, and a wonderfully posed photograph of R.L. Stevenson in Samoa.
![Lot 81 | Janssonius, Jan | Novus Atlas, sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum: volume 1 [In quo Germaniae superioris...] £3,000 - £5,000 + fees](https://upbeat-excitement-bc060e4374.media.strapiapp.com/000001_a_Wt_Xy_R_original_4140af1c74.jpeg)
D. Alan Stevenson (David Alan Stevenson), 1891-1971, was the last of the Stevenson Lighthouse Engineers – a dynasty which spanned four generations. D. Alan Stevenson’s interests were wide-ranging: a keen philatelist, he was the author of ‘The Triangular stamps of the Cape of Good Hope’, which earned him the Crawford Medal from the Royal Philatelic Society of London. He enjoyed his researches into family history and was planning an updated version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Records of a Family of Engineers’. He was also a keen collector of atlases, and purchased copies of highly desirable atlases by Sebastian Münster, Jan Janssonius and Matthias Quad, alongside a complete copy of Ptolemy’s ‘Geografia’ in contemporary vellum.
For collectors of maps, atlases and maritime history, the Stevenson archive and library is a rare opportunity to discover unusual, and even unique, items. These are now ready to take their next steps into new collections and add to their impressive provenance.
Robert Stevenson was born in Glasgow in 1772. From a small boy without a father, attending a local charity school, Robert became one of Scotland’s most prolific civil engineers, known as a designer of lighthouses. Thanks to his stepfather, Thomas Smith, Robert Stevenson was able to serve as an apprentice civil engineer and was so talented that he was appointed as supervisor for the erection of a lighthouse on Little Cumbrae. Stevenson’s magnum opus is considered to be the Bell Rock Lighthouse, constructed between 1807 and 1810. The lighthouse is built on an offshore reef, exposed only at low tide, known as a sea-washed lighthouse. Stevenson married his stepsister, Jean Smith, in 1799 and had three sons: Alan, David and Thomas. Robert Stevenson’s grandchildren include the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, through his son Thomas; and David Alan Stevenson (1854-1938) and Charles Alexander Stevenson (1855-1950), who followed family tradition and became lighthouse engineers. These men were the sons of David Stevenson.
Along with his brothers, Alan Stevenson (engineer for the Skerryvore Lighthouse) and Thomas Stevenson, David Stevenson was a Scottish lighthouse designer and part of the second generation of the Stevenson lighthouse dynasty. Stevenson designed lighthouses between 1854 and 1880, alongside widening Edinburgh’s North Bridge and engineering Edinburgh and Leith’s sewerage system! His lighthouses included Whalsay Skerries, Muckle Flugga, St Abb’s Head, and Lindisfarne. His sons, David Alan and Charles Alexander also became lighthouse engineers, whilst his nephew, Robert Louis Stevenson, was one of Scotland best-loved writers.
Born in Edinburgh, Charles Alexander Stevenson built 23 lighthouses along with his brother, David Alan Stevenson. His son, David Alan Stevenson (named for his uncle) was the last of the family to enter the family profession of lighthouse design and engineering.
David Alan Stevenson (often known as D. Alan Stevenson in order to differentiate himself from his uncle) was the final lighthouse engineer in the Stevenson Lighthouse Dynasty. He was born in Edinburgh, and served as a Captain in the Royal Marines as an engineer. Alongside his career as an engineer, Stevenson was also a keen philatelist. His ownership signature in many of the atlases in our February 2024 Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs sale also shows that D. Alan Stevenson was a keen bibliophile and collector of important cartographic material.
