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Stevenson (ROBERT a Scotch engineer born)

ROBERT, a Scotch engineer; born in Glasgow, Scotland, June 8, 1772. His father died during his infancy; and his mother having (1786) married Thomas Smith, the first engineer of the Lighthouse Board, young Stevenson was led to the study of engineering. In 1796 he succeeded his stepfather as engineer and inspector of lighthouses; and during his 47 years' tenure of that office he planned and constructed 23 lighthouses round the Scotch coasts, employing the catoptric system of illumination, and his valuable invention of "intermittent" and "flashing" lights. The most remarkable of these erections was that on the Bell Rock.

Stevenson was also in great request as a consulting engineer in the matter of roads, bridges, harbors, canals, and railways. He wrote four volumes of professional printed reports, a large work on the Bell Rock lighthouse, some articles in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" and in the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia."

He died in Edinburgh July 12, 1850.