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

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As well as the sheer number of lighthouses the Stevensons contributed to, the family also championed key engineering developments that fundamentally changed the course of lighthouse building forever.

This was when I came as a young man to glean engineering experience from the building of the breakwater. In the 18th century Thomas Smith married Robert Stevenson’s widowed mother which merged their two families, and thus began from scratch the building of the lighthouses in Scotland. This book charts the development of the family and the engineering trade - Robert Stevenson was the typical pioneer while his sons in later Victorian times had the benefits of shared education with the drawbacks of bureaucracy. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of classics like Kidnapped and Treasure Island, was Robert’s grandson (and Alan’s nephew), and much of his own accounts of his family history inform this work.Black sheep Robert Louis did nae bad out of writing, but primarch Robert Stevenson was a force to be reckoned with. In Bella Bathurst's fascinating history, we are taken on a journey that encompasses four generations of Stevenson's and four iconic Scottish lighthouses, starting with Robert Stevenson (1772 - 1850), the famous author's grandfather, who, in partnership with his own stepfather, developed the career of "lighthouse engineer" and built the famous (and many deemed impossible) Bell Rock Lighthouse. I learned about them, their builders and quite a lot about Edinburgh history while reading this book, and the book itself is a late discovery.

Those who escaped death through disease, ill treatments, or hardship had little hope of surviving shipwrecks. Robert Louis was a sickly fellow, and - unlike the rest of his strong-willed, determined family - certainly not up to the astonishing rigours of lighthouse building, all of which are vividly described here. As at Bell Rock even bringing in construction materials was a challenge as the rocks had no anchorages, the boats bobbed about while they craned great dressed stones on to the site.Against all odds, what could be a more or less detailed report of complex engineering works (especially for the 19th century) turns out to have an unsuspected dose of epic, drama and heroism, as well as a particularly nostalgic period portrait. To read about the planning that goes into such a construction, the manpower, the ever-present risk to life from a tempestuous Atlantic, is jaw-dropping. 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.

A very interesting history and surprising, that despite being overshadowed by Robert Louis Stevenson's literature, his forebears were phenomenal engineers of the Victorian era and particularly of Scottish Lighthouses. The same driven energy which Robert Louis Stevenson put into writing, his ancestors put into lighting the darkness of the seas. Here is a family of engineers who spanned four generations and produced a children's story author, Robert Louis Stevenson, Tusitala, the teller of tales. But Bella Bathurst throws a powerful, revolving light into the darkness of this historical tradition.It is amazing that the lighthouses were so well constructed and that they last to this day even as automated lights.

David Stevenson’s sons, David and Charles, also pursued lighthouse engineering from the late 19th century to the late 1930s, building nearly 30 more lighthouses. For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password.Then, the book does a great job of explaining the arduous, endless work of the engineers to design and build the lighthouses, as well as bridges, roads, harbors and other works of the nation during the crucial decades. One of the men who should have been in the third generation is Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author, who defied his father's wishes and become an author. This is an accessible book that concentrates on the human story of the family who built those lighthouses, the Stevensons. Una historia sobre el nacimiento de la ingeniería, la pobreza de muchas breves islas, que se lucraban con los restos de los naufragios y las escalofriantes cifras de estos últimos.

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