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Most of us, if asked to name a famous Scottish Stevenson, would undoubtedly name Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

However, Louis was by no means the most productive of the Stevenson family. His father intended him to continue the family tradition of lighthouse construction and was disappointed when he chose his literary path.

Bella Bathurst, in The Lighthouse Stevensons, tells the story of the four generations of this visionary family whose lives were devoted to building lighthouses around the dangerous coasts of Scotland.

Between 1700 and 1940, eight members of the Stevenson family planned, designed and constructed ninety-seven manned lighthouses on remote rocks in the Atlantic ocean and on bleak headlands right around the Scottish coast. They were also responsible for harbours, roads, railways, docks and canals all over Scotland.

These feats of engineering took place when there were no modern transporters, cranes or tools to perform the fearsome engineering feats of building walls nine-feet thick to withstand the ferocious storms that sweep the Scottish coasts.

In The Lighthouse Stevensons, Bella Bathurst’s illustrated and detailed text makes this astonishingly dedicated family live again for us.

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