Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
of Parliament, which allowed them to have the powers to purchase land, borrow money
and levy dues from ships to finance their work and building. Initially the Commission-
further impetus was given by two further Acts of Parliament in 1788 and 1789.
The Scottish local lights (which were much smaller than lighthouses) and seamarks
had been constructed under local Acts of Parliament or Burgh Charters. Buddon Ness
ontheTaywastheearliestrecordedlight,constructedbyanActofthePrivyCouncilin
1687. An Act in 1836 made these local lights and seamarks subject to the supervision
and inspection of the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses.
3
The division of lighthouse responsibility in the British Isles eventually settled: Trin-
ityHousecoveredEnglandandtheChannelIslands(alsoincludingEuropaPointLight-
house at Gibraltar); Irish Lights, with headquarters in Dublin, covered both Eire and
Northern Ireland; and the Northern Lighthouse Board covered Scotland and the Isle of
Man. The exception to the system of Scottish lighthouses was the six lighthouses on
the River Clyde, which had been owned and administered by two separate trusts before
being amalgamated into the Clydeport Trust in 1966.
The story of lighthouses and their development in Scotland is strongly linked to one
remarkable family. The best known member of that family is Robert Louis Stevenson,
who is remembered for his outstanding writing. But it is the other members of his fam-
ily who, though perhaps not as well known, are primarily responsible for the establish-
ment of the network of lighthouses around the most dangerous parts of the Scottish
coast.
Startingwiththeheadoftheline,ThomasSmith,theredescendedfromhimaproces-
sion of very capable and highly intelligent men who were fine examples of the Scottish
talent for civil engineering.
Thomas Smith had married Jean Stevenson in 1787 taking on her son Robert as a
stepson. It was her second marriage and his third. They were widow and widower and
it was as much a marriage of convenience as attraction, as both had young children.
Although Thomas Smith was the head of the line as far as the actual connection with
lighthousesgoes(hewasengineertotheNLB),thefirstoftheactualStevensondynasty
would be Robert Stevenson. In 1786, Robert Stevenson had put his studies to one side
to learn the craft of working with iron and lights from his stepfather Thomas Smith.
Between the two of them they set out to improve the system of lighting by replacing
the early and unreliable fire-type lights, firstly with oil and then with gas, and improv-
ing the oil light system. The key to their progress was in the development of the use of
optics. Notwithstanding their passion to improve the system of lighthouses in Scotland,
they also immersed themselves in many other projects, most of which might be said to
have the underlying theme, not just of engineering projects for their own sake to build
