I find also that coincident with this start in life, he commenced a systematic “Journal,” beginning in 1801, of the various travels made in the prosecution of his profession, which occupies nineteen octavo and quarto manuscript books.
His Reports, many of them on subjects of great interest, occupy fourteen folio manuscript volumes, and his printed reports occupy four thick quarto volumes.
These books, together with relative plans, the number of which I fear to mention, are the documents I had to consult in obtaining the records of my father’s professional life. The Journals, Reports, and Plans extend over a period of nearly fifty years, and the selection of topics from such a mass of matter has been no easy task. But as the duty I have undertaken is to convey to the reader a sketch of my father as a Civil Engineer, I have been content, passing over many interesting subjects, to select from the documents before me only so much as should be useful in carrying out that object; and even in this I encountered the difficulty of determining the best order in which the selections I have made should be given. To do so according to any chronological arrangement I find to be impossible, and having resolved to give them not as a consecutive narrative, but in the form of detached notices, I think it will be most appropriate that I should commence the story of Mr. Stevenson’s professional life with his great work—the Bell Rock Lighthouse,—which extended over a period of twelve years, commencing with his early conception of its structure in 1799, and terminating with its completion in 1811.
* * * * *
The Inchcape or Bell Rock lies off the east coast of Scotland, nearly abreast of the entrance to the Firth of Tay, at a distance of eleven miles from Arbroath, the nearest point of the mainland. The name of “Bell” has its origin in the legend respecting the good intention of a pious Abbot of Aberbrothock being frustrated by the notorious pirate, Sir Ralph the Rover, as related in Southey’s well-known lines, which I have given in an [Appendix].
Of the origin, progress, and completion of the lighthouse Mr. Stevenson has left a lasting memorial and most interesting narrative in his quarto volume of upwards of 500 pages, a great part of which was written to his dictation by his only daughter, and was published in 1824.[2]
But there are some circumstances connected with the early history of the Bell Rock, which, while they could not properly have found a place in his narrative, have been noticed in his Memoranda, from which I shall transcribe a few paragraphs detailing his early efforts and disappointments while engaged in designing and arranging for the prosecution of that great work:—
“All knew the difficulties of the erection of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and the casualties to which that edifice had been liable; and in comparing the two situations, it was generally remarked that the Eddystone was barely covered by the tide at high water, while the Bell Rock was barely uncovered at low water.
“I had much to contend with in the then limited state of my experience; and I had in various ways to bear up against public opinion as well as against interested parties. I was in this state of things, however, greatly supported, and I would even say often comforted, by Mr. Clerk of Eldin, author of the System of Breaking the Line in Naval Tactics. Mr. Clerk took great interest in my models, and spoke much of them in scientific circles. He carried men of science and eminent strangers to the model-room which I had provided in Merchants Hall, of which he sometimes carried the key, both when I was at home and while I was abroad. He introduced me to Lord Webb Seymour, to Admiral Lord Duncan, and to Professors Robison and Playfair, and others. Mr. Clerk had been personally known to Smeaton, and used occasionally to speak of him to me.”
It is impossible to read this little narrative without feeling a respect for Mr. Clerk’s hearty enthusiasm, and perceiving the beneficial influence which a kindly disposition may produce on the pursuits of a young man, by stimulating an honourable emulation and discouraging a desponding spirit.
“But at length,” the memorandum continues, “all difficulties with the public, as well as with the better informed few, were dispelled by the fatal effects of a dreadful storm from the N.E., which occurred in December 1799, when it was ascertained that no fewer than seventy sail of vessels were stranded or lost, with many of their crews, upon the coast of Scotland alone! Many of them, it was not doubted, might have found a safe asylum in the Firth of Forth, had there been a lighthouse upon the Bell Rock, on which, indeed, it was generally believed the ‘York,’ of 74 guns, with all hands, perished, none being left to tell the tale! The coast for many miles exhibited portions of that fine ship. There was now, therefore, but one voice,—‘There must be a lighthouse erected on the Bell Rock.’
“Previous to this dreadful storm I had prepared my pillar-formed model, a section of which is shown in Plate VII. of the ‘Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse.’ Early in the year 1800, I, for the first time, landed on the rock to see the application of my pillar-formed model to the situation for which it was designed and made.
“On this occasion I was accompanied by my friend Mr. James Haldane, architect, whose pupil I had been for architectural drawing. Our landing was at low water of a spring-tide, when a good space of rock was above water, and then the realities of its danger were amply exemplified by the numerous relics which were found in its crevices, such as a ship’s marking-iron, a piece of a kedge-anchor, and a cabin stove, a bayonet, cannon-ball, silver shoe-buckle, crowbars, pieces of money, and other evidences of recent shipwreck.
“I had no sooner set foot upon the rock than I laid aside all idea of a pillar-formed structure, fully convinced that a building on similar principles with the Eddystone would be found practicable.
“On my return from this visit to the rock, I immediately set to work in good earnest, with a design of a stone lighthouse, and modelled it. I accompanied this design with a report or memorial to the Lighthouse Board. The abandoned pillar-formed plan I estimated at £15,000, and the stone building at £42,685, 8s. But still I found that I had not made much impression on the Board on the score of expense, for they feared it would cost much more than forty or fifty thousand pounds.”