author
Alan Stevenson
1807–1865
Drawn to the wild edges of Scotland, this 19th-century engineer helped make sea travel safer with bold lighthouse designs built in some of the country’s toughest locations. He is especially remembered for Skerryvore, one of the great engineering feats of its age.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Edinburgh in 1807, Alan Stevenson was part of the remarkable Stevenson family of engineers. He studied at the High School and University of Edinburgh, then followed his father Robert Stevenson into lighthouse engineering, a field that would define his life’s work.
He became engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board in the 1840s and designed or oversaw a number of important Scottish lighthouses. His best-known achievement is Skerryvore Lighthouse, built on a dangerous reef off the west coast of Scotland and often praised as a masterpiece of practical engineering as well as elegant design.
Stevenson was also a writer on engineering subjects, sharing what he learned from years of work in difficult coastal conditions. He died in 1865, and he is still remembered as one of the key figures in the long Stevenson tradition of lighthouse building that also connects to his famous nephew, Robert Louis Stevenson.