David Stevenson Lighthouse Coast Of East Neuk Of Fife Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video, with Scottish music, of Elie Ness lighthouse on ancestry visit to the coast of the East Neuk of Fife. Elie lighthouse was built by the renowned David Stevenson in 1908. The top of the tower and outbuilding are of a crenulated design more akin to castle than a lighthouse. David Stevenson was born on 11th January 1815 at 2 Baxters Place at the top of Leith Walk in Edinburgh, the son of Jean Smith and engineer Robert Stevenson. He was brother of the lighthouse engineers Alan and Thomas Stevenson. He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh then studied at the University of Edinburgh. In 1838 he became a partner in his father's, and uncle's, firm of R & A Stevenson. In 1844 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being David Milne Home. In 1853 he moved to the Northern Lighthouse Board. Between 1854 and 1880 he designed many lighthouses, all with his brother Thomas. In addition he helped Richard Henry Brunton design lighthouses for Japan, inventing a novel method for allowing them to withstand earthquakes. His sons David Alan Stevenson and Charles Alexander Stevenson continued his work after his death, building nearly thirty further lighthouses. In the 1860s he lived at 25 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh. He died in North Berwick on 17th July 1886. He is buried in Dean Cemetery in west Edinburgh.

The surname Stevenson was first found in Northumberland, England, where they were established since the early Middle Ages at Knaresdale Hall, and at Newcastle on Tyne. By 1150, they had moved north to Scotland in the parish of Newlands in Peebles in the Borders, where Stevene Stevenson swore an oath of allegiance to King Edward I of England during the latter's brief conquest of Scotland in 1296. Another early Scottish record of this surname dates back to 1372, when one Nichol fiz, 'son of, Steven, chaplain of Scotland, was given a license to take shipping at London or Dovorre

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