The only son of Alan Stevenson was Robert, the subject of this Memoir, who was born at Glasgow on the 8th of June 1772.
When his father died, Robert Stevenson, then an infant, was left in circumstances of difficulty, for the same epidemic fever which deprived him of his father carried off his uncle also, at a time when their loss operated most disadvantageously on the business which they conducted; and, strange to say, on account of legal difficulties, nearly half a century elapsed before any patrimonial funds in which my father had an interest were realised.
Under these circumstances his mother (Jean Lillie, daughter of David Lillie, builder in Glasgow, who died, as stated on his tombstone, in the Cathedral burying-ground, in 1774) resolved to go to Edinburgh to reside with a married sister, and when her son reached the age of being able for school she wisely took advantage of one of the hospitals in that city for his education; and the spirit of the man is well brought out by the fact that he devoted his first earnings in life, at the Cumbrae Lighthouse, to making a contribution to the funds of the Orphan Hospital in payment of what he regarded as a debt.
It appears from “Memoranda” left by my father for the information of his family, that his mother was a woman of great prudence and remarkable fortitude, based on deep convictions of religion; and, even in their time of trial, which lasted over his school days, he says,—“My mother’s ingenuous and gentle spirit amidst all her difficulties never failed her. She still relied on the providence of God, though sometimes, in the recollection of her father’s house and her younger days, she remarked that the ways of Providence were often dark to us. The Bible, and attendance on the ministrations, chiefly of Mr. Randall of Lady Yester’s Church, afterwards Dr. Davidson of the Tolbooth,[1] and at other churches, where I was almost always her constant attendant, were the great sources of her comfort.
“Her intention was that I should be trained for the ministry, with a view to which I had been sent, after leaving my first school, to Mr. Macintyre, a famous linguist of his day, where I made the acquaintance of Patrick Neill, afterwards the well-known printer, and still better known naturalist, who remained my most intimate friend through life, and of William Blackwood, the no less celebrated publisher.”
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Circumstances, however, occurred which entirely changed my father’s prospects and pursuits. Soon after he had attained his fifteenth year his mother was married to Mr. Thomas Smith—son of a shipowner, and member of the Trinity House of Dundee,—who himself was, my father says, a “furnishing iron-merchant, shipowner, and underwriter” in Edinburgh, and who being also a lamp-maker and an ingenious mechanician, appears at a very early date to have directed his attention to the subject of lighthouses, and endeavoured to improve the mode of illumination then in use, by substituting lamps with mirrors, for the open coal-fires which were at that early time the only beacons to guide the mariner.
Mr. Smith’s improvements attracted the notice of Professor Robison, Sir David Hunter Blair, and Mr. Creech, the publisher and honorary secretary to the Chamber of Commerce. I find from the minutes of that body, that in 1786, a complaint was made to them by shipmasters as to the defective state of the coal light on the Isle of May, which was a “private light” belonging to the family of the Duke of Portland.
The Chamber sent a deputation of their number to inquire into the truth of the objections that had been made, who fully confirmed the justice of the complaints.
When the result of the examination was reported to the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Smith submitted to them “a plan for improving the light by dispensing with the coal-fire,” and after fully considering his suggestions, the Chamber, at their meeting of 24th May 1786, resolved “that while they allowed much ingenuity to Mr. Smith’s plan of reflectors, they were of opinion that a coal light should be continued.”