gentleman, attentive to his mother and devoted to his stepbrothers and sisters. He was also becoming a plausible successor to Thomas as head of the family. Even then, he had already shouldered all the adult responsibilities of his future life and was busily developing an ambition to move on in the world. He, like the rest of the Smith-Stevenson brood, felt the need ‘to gather wealth, to rise in society, to leave their descendants higher themselves, to be (in some sense) among the founders of families’, as his grandson Louis later put it. Above all, Robert wanted to be useful.
Much of Robert’s later attitude to life was marked by the experience of his childhood. His early years had shown him first the impoverishment caused by his father’s early death, and then, through the move to Edinburgh and his mother’s marriage to Thomas, the evidence that merit and enterprise earned their rewards. Above all, they had taught him to trust in himself. He also remained mindful of the sacrifices Jean Lillie had made for him, acknowledging many years later that ‘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 move to Edinburgh and the uniting of the two households had also proved helpful. Thomas’s example in ironmongery and lighthouses had not only settled Robert in his chosen vocation but allowed him to repay what he felt were some of his early debts in life. He was also lucky in his choice. Engineering suited him, drawing out both his fondness for adventure and his talent for mathematical abstractions. It allowed him to be creative, and to contribute something of worth to posterity. Above all, it was a useful, manly sort of trade, requiring both solidity and self-confidence.
For the moment, however, Robert was still preoccupied with the slow climb up the foothills of his profession. During the 1790s, he was despatched to Glasgow University to learn civil engineering under the supervision of Professor John Anderson. ‘Jolly Jack Phosphorous’, as Anderson was known, was rare among eighteenth-century tutors for being as enthusiastic about the practical applications of engineering as he was about its theory. It was said that Anderson had first interested James Watt in steam power, and, scandalously, that his university classes were based as much on fieldwork as they were on black-board studies. He later bequeathed money to a separate technical college in Glasgow staffed with tutors who would not ‘be permitted, as in some other Colleges, to be Drones or Triflers, Drunkards or negligent in any manner of way’. The college flourished, and was eventually to become Strathclyde University.
In addition to his classes in mathematics, natural philosophy (physics), drawing, and mechanics, Robert learned much of direct value to Thomas’s business, and in later years became an ardent supporter of Anderson’s methods. ‘It was the practice of Professor Anderson kindly to befriend and forward the views of his pupils,’ he wrote later, ‘and his attention to me during the few years I had the pleasure of being known to him was of a very marked kind, for he directed my attention to various pursuits with the view to my coming forward as an engineer.’ Having discovered the attractions of a subject he wanted to learn, Robert had also become a keen preacher for the benefits of a sound education. The first fees he earned for his engineering work were passed on almost instantly to his old school, and his letters home are peppered with references to the usefulness of his university classes. Once converted to anything, Robert was always the most fanatic of believers.
Robert also showed an enthusiastic interest in the lighthouses. The mutable quality of the work suited him and after accompanying Thomas on a couple of his regular inspection tours, Robert began to appropriate small patches of lighthouse territory for himself. Thomas introduced him to the Commissioners, allowed him to fit lenses or supervise building work and encouraged him to develop his interest as warmly as possible. By the mid 1790s, Robert appears often in the NLB’s Minute books, first as understudy, and then in more significant roles. He already had a sound grasp of all aspects of the business from the sizing of lamps to the sculpting of reflectors. His chief fault, if any, was a forcefulness in his dealings that did not always endear him to potential customers. Within six years of joining Thomas’s workshop he was regarded as an equal in almost all aspects of the work, and by 1800 had been made a full partner in the firm.
And so, in the pattern that was to become settled for the next three Stevenson generations, Robert spent his winters at home in the south studying and his summers in the north supervising the details of work on the lights. Much of his education was also completed in Thomas’s workshops first at Bristo Street and then at Baxter’s Place, making grates for the gentry and lamplights for the Corporation. As master and pupil, Thomas and he were well suited to each other. It was in some ways an odd partnership; Thomas was, after all, not only Robert’s employer, but also his stepfather. Stretched too far, the relationship could have become awkward or imbalanced, but as it was, the two made ideal accomplices. Thomas, though a milder character, was a generous teacher. The two men were alike in many respects. Both had been reared the hard way; both believed in the benefits of a stern apprenticeship, and neither took anything for granted. Before he died, Thomas was to realise that Robert’s talents would one day far eclipse his own. It is a measure of Thomas’s generosity that, far from resenting his stepson’s advancement, he was delighted.
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