Customer Reviews

The Lighthouse Stevensons

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I must disagree with the earlier reviewers. While the book would have benefited from a more thorough editing and proofreading process, I nonetheless greatly enjoyed reading it. It appeared to be well researched and the author obviously has a passion for the subject. I found the Stevenson family fascinating. The descriptions of the building of the lighthouses, particularly the great ones; Eddystone, Bell Rock, and Skerryvore, imparted a sense of both the excitement in attempting such daunting projects and the tremendous difficulties that were overcome to build the structures. I also enjoyed the illustrations, but wish that more had been included. I would recommend this book to anyone having an interest in the history of lighthouses or maritime engineering.

"Extraordinary" is certainly the appropriate term for Bathurst's excellent documentation of the incredible Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers. Up to this time, most of the attention toward this families accomplishments has focused on the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, and left others of his amazing family in the dust. Bathurst's research is impressive and her ability to tell this story is thorough, yet highly enjoyable(I missed my bus twice.). The most exciting part really is about patriarch Robert Stevenson's building of the lighthouse at Bell Rock. You can feel the sense of horror as Stevenson notices their ship has pulled away from it's moorings, and his realization that death may be near as the tide rises. If you don't have a summer book yet, and you like good non-fiction. Try this one!

A wonderful book about the Stevenson's and their fantastic lighthouses. I throughly enjoyed reading this book. Several small errors; Robert Stevenson could not have used Dynamite in the early 1800's because it was not invented by Nobel until 1862. If the NBL was still consulting with Michael Faraday in 1883 it must have been by ouija board because Faraday died in 1867. The weight of a square foot of water is zero while a cubic foot of sea water weights 64lb.

As a scuba diver who is always looking for the more remote locations, I often find myself in some wilderness area surrounded by the sea. Quite frequently, there is a lighthouse nearby and I always seem to be made aware of those that were "British Built."

What I had not realised before reading this book, was that the famous Robert Louis Stevenson came from a long line of Stevensons who were expert lighthouse builders. Indeed, he is quoted in the book as having said; "Whenever I smell salt water, I know I am not far from the works of my ancestors."

This is a fascinating work which has been brought to life by an author who has done a really good job. Having been brought up in an age where electricity was used to power lighthouses from before I was born, photographs and accounts of how coal was hoisted to the top of these mammoth structures in earlier days is both a revelation and education in itself.

Containing portraits of various notable engineers in addition to the different lighthouses they built, I was impressed by the inclusion of a painting of one light by the legendary J. M. W. Turner, no less, the comparable sizes of different lights and sectional drawings showing how the brickwork was interlaced in order to withstand the fiercest storms.

An excellent book and one which will allow me to tell my fellow travellers something about whatever remote lighthouse we end up climbing at some time in the future.

NM

The original British version does not have the typos, and can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk The British version has been very well received and I'd recommend it very highly. I understand the US version is being corrected for typos and re-printed.

This books subjects are potentialy wonderful - the lighthouses of Scotland's wild coasts and the men who overcame what were seen in their time as insurmountable obstacles by building them. But the book is a mess. It is poorly constructed, with lots of irrelevant material, (a whole chapter about some English loony who didnt even build a lighthouse) and a fair amount of women's mag level psychobabble without any real insight into the character, intelligence or motivations of the Stevensons. There is little make us care about them as people. There is also no hint of any real understanding of the technical achievements of the Stevensons who were working at the frontiers of engineering and technology of their times(and thus no convinving attempt to convey it to us!). Also, God only knows why the book wasnt properly proof read or edited but it wasn't - which just adds to the irritation. This review is a bit of a fraud because I was so disgusted I didn't finish reading it. However even on 2/3 reading it is apparent that any pretentions to write a definitive account of the lives of the Stevensons must await the efforts of someone more competent than the author.

Bella Bathurst is a bit of a conjurer. In just over 260 pages, she has managed to provide a lot of fascinating, exciting and even quirky information concerning the construction of the Scottish lighthouses, plus well-crafted biographical portraits of members of four generations of the Stevenson family. She gets the reader hooked immediately, interestingly enough, by writing about someone who was not even a member of the Stevenson clan - Captain George Manby. Manby, around 1805, came up with a method of keeping rowboats afloat in heavy seas, to be used in conjunction with a "rescue line" tossed out to foundering ships which were close to shore. In conjunction, these would be used to rescue seamen before their ships sank and they drowned. This didn't appeal to the people called "wreckers," who depended upon booty from the sunken ships for their livelihood. In their view, it was better to let crew members drown - after all, they might put up a fuss concerning the theft of the ships' cargo. When, in 1807, the naive Manby let some wreckers take him out on a boat so he could test the seaworthiness of his new and buoyant rowboats, the wreckers intentionally capsized the boat - hoping to drown Manby, who couldn't swim. (Fortunately for Manby, he managed not to drown.) This anecdote ties into the rest of the book, because when the Stevenson family started building lighthouses, the wreckers weren't too thrilled with that development either. So, a lot of the people in the seaside communities didn't exactly put out the welcome mat. Not only that, but the Stevensons' had to put up with "press gangs" trying to shanghai workers so they could man merchant and military ships. Part of this book reads like an adventure tale - with the workers battling the mighty forces of mother nature on remote spits of land that were sometimes 10-15 miles off of the Scottish coast. The workers, at some locations, would have to be transported daily from the mainland - fighting against seasickness and terrific winds and rain. They would sometimes be marooned on the desolate pieces of rock where the lighthouses were being constructed, as savage storms would blow for days or even weeks on end. There is even an Egyptian flavor to the construction - as huge blocks of carefully carved and smoothed stone are transported and painstakingly put together. Each block had its own unique place in the puzzle, and the margins for error were slight- 1/8 of an inch per stone in some cases. This was a case of bullwork being combined with fine craftmanship - all being done under atrocious climatic conditions. It is a tribute to Ms. Bathurst's writing and organizational skills that, even with all of this activity swirling through the pages, we don't lose sight of the Stevensons. We see the patriarch, Robert Stevenson, with his formidable work ethic, energy, and devotion to public duty. Even in his late seventies he was still going, by ship, all along the Scottish coast, on long inspection tours of "his" lighthouses. Religion is also a part of this story - in particular, the Scottish belief in a stern, no-nonsense God: On one project Alan Stevenson, one of Robert's sons, made his men work on the Sabbath days. Later on in life Alan came down with a neurological disorder (which the author speculates was muscular dystrophy). Alan was convinced that God was punishing him for his sins. He tried to atone through prayer and through whatever work he was still able to do. When the disease went into remission, Alan thought he was finally being forgiven. When he got worse, he thought he wasn't doing enough to earn God's forgiveness. This makes heartbreaking reading. The writer, Robert Louis Stevenson (known as Louis), also enters into the story, as his father, Tom, wanted him to continue in the family tradition. Louis made some youthful efforts to accomodate his father but, although engineering and lighthouses were in the blood, this life wasn't for him. We'll never know if this was engineering's loss, but it was certainly literature's gain. When they weren't dealing with 100 mile-per-hour winds and, sometimes, 200 foot waves, the Stevensons also found time to build roads, bridges, harbors, breakwaters, etc. In the preface, Ms. Bathurst says that she didn't attempt to write a definitive biography of the Lighthouse Stevensons, but she hoped the book "will be seen as a kind of taster for the subject, and that anyone wanting to search further will be able to do so." This reader, for one, found this remarkable book to be very tasty indeed.

What comes across loud and clear was the desperate need for navigation aids on the coast of Britain in the 18th Century; in 1800, Lloyds reckoned they were losing one ship a day (!) to shipwreck - and these are only the ones reported - the true figure, including small craft, was probably many times that. The lighthouses that did exist were coal-fired, inadequate, confusing and extinguished at the worst possible times - in storms.

This book does not pretend to be a treatise on all lighthouses, but specifically those built by the 4 generations of the Stevenson family.
It starts unusually with the youngest, and most famous, of the Stevensons - Robert Louis - who had few dealings in lighthouses, nor any wish to; but his experiences and those of his forebears influenced his life and writings, as in 'Kidnapped' and 'Treasure Island' - both concerned with wrecks and dark deeds on lonely islands.
His unfinished family history is a fount of information (and speculation), however, and this is the reason for his place in the book; the main protagonists come next, starting with his step-great-grandfather, who stumbled into the job of erecting a REAL lighthouse (as opposed to the earlier amateur attempts) on the basis of his experiments with lamps... the rest is history.

The chapter on the Bell Rock reads almost like a novel; Rennie, the man originally hired to design and build the light, being gradually ousted by Robert, who claims the work as his own - understandably, as Rennie wanted the kudos, but had no desire for the hardship, only visiting the construction 3 times, whereas Robert thrived on it (but was not averse to a touch of glory).
Of course it all ends in tears, with an acrimonious wrangle dragging on for years; but it established Robert as THE lighthouse engineer, winning him new commisions for roads, canals, bridges etc..
His descendants follow in the family tradition (pushed heavily by Robert), keeping to the same basic design of Smeaton's Eddystone light, they erect lights all round the Scottish coast; incidentally gaining the undying hostility of the hordes of wreckers, whose grisly activities were effectively foiled by the lights.

Ms.Bathhurst's writing is fluid, assured and informative, never patronisong or descending into scholarly jargon, and, though very well-researched, (see the comprehensive bibliography), does not pepper the text with notes, foot-notes and references - this is after all a Popular History book.

Thoroughly entertaining - highly recommended.*****.

The large number of very favorable editorial reviews ( by some of the most respected critics) confirm that this is an excellent piece of writing. Apparently,at least one edition lacked appropriate checking and editing. But these irritating deficiencies should not be allowed to degrade the average customer review to a level that turns away potential readers who would otherwise enjoy this excellent book.

It's hard to imagine that a book about lighthouses would be a page-turner, but this one is. The tale of how multiple generations of Stevensons (with a Smith or two thrown in there) perfected the modern lighthouse is told with a perfect balance of technical coverage, tales of bravery, and family history. The fact that one part of the line ended with Robert Louis Stevenson, who helped build one major lighthouse before turning his back on the family business, adds a fascinating coda to the story.

I've been to Scotland, but never visited the coasts. I've climbed several lighthouses in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and South, but they are not sited on such difficult terrain. So, reading this book makes me want to see the lighthouses of Scotland: the true tests of man's ingenuity vs. nature's power. Those lighthouses have withstood gales and 100-foot waves for more than a century (sometimes more than two centuries). The author really makes you feel what kind of an achievement that has been.

It's also one of those books that makes you want to do more reading -- on lighthouse construction, but also on the history of modern Scotland, the Crimean War, and, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson.