The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst

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the attractions of a subject he wanted to learn, Robert had also become a keen preacher for the benefits of a sound education. The first fees he earned for his engineering work were passed on almost instantly to his old school, and his letters home are peppered with references to the usefulness of his university classes. Once converted to anything, Robert was always the most fanatic of believers.

      Robert also showed an enthusiastic interest in the lighthouses. The mutable quality of the work suited him and after accompanying Thomas on a couple of his regular inspection tours, Robert began to appropriate small patches of lighthouse territory for himself. Thomas introduced him to the Commissioners, allowed him to fit lenses or supervise building work and encouraged him to develop his interest as warmly as possible. By the mid 1790s, Robert appears often in the NLB’s Minute books, first as understudy, and then in more significant roles. He already had a sound grasp of all aspects of the business from the sizing of lamps to the sculpting of reflectors. His chief fault, if any, was a forcefulness in his dealings that did not always endear him to potential customers. Within six years of joining Thomas’s workshop he was regarded as an equal in almost all aspects of the work, and by 1800 had been made a full partner in the firm.

      And so, in the pattern that was to become settled for the next three Stevenson generations, Robert spent his winters at home in the south studying and his summers in the north supervising the details of work on the lights. Much of his education was also completed in Thomas’s workshops first at Bristo Street and then at Baxter’s Place, making grates for the gentry and lamplights for the Corporation. As master and pupil, Thomas and he were well suited to each other. It was in some ways an odd partnership; Thomas was, after all, not only Robert’s employer, but also his stepfather. Stretched too far, the relationship could have become awkward or imbalanced, but as it was, the two made ideal accomplices. Thomas, though a milder character, was a generous teacher. The two men were alike in many respects. Both had been reared the hard way; both believed in the benefits of a stern apprenticeship, and neither took anything for granted. Before he died, Thomas was to realise that Robert’s talents would one day far eclipse his own. It is a measure of Thomas’s generosity that, far from resenting his stepson’s advancement, he was delighted.

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