Thomas Stevenson

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For other people named Thomas Stevenson, see Thomas Stevenson (disambiguation).
Thomas Stevenson
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Thomas Stevenson, 1880
Born 22 July 1818
Died 8 May 1887
Edinburgh
Alma mater Edinburgh University
Occupation Lighthouse engineer
Employer Northern Lighthouse Board
Home town Edinburgh
Children Robert Louis Stevenson
Parent(s) Robert Stevenson (father)
Relatives David Stevenson (brother)
Alan Stevenson (brother)
Signature
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Thomas Stevenson PRSE MInstCE FRSSA FSAScot (1818–1887) was a pioneering Scottish lighthouse designer and meteorologist, who designed over thirty lighthouses in and around Scotland, as well as the Stevenson screen used in meteorology. His designs, celebrated as ground breaking, ushered in a new era of lighthouse creation.

He served as president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (1859–60), as president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1884-86), and was a co-founder of the Scottish Meteorological Society.[1]

Background

The youngest son of engineer Robert Stevenson, and brother of the lighthouse engineers Alan and David Stevenson, between 1854 and 1886 he designed many lighthouses, with his brother David, and then with David's son David Alan Stevenson. James Melville Balfour trained under D. & T. Stevenson and then emigrated to New Zealand, where he was first the marine engineer for Otago Province before he appointed Colonial Marine Engineer.[2][3]

He married Margaret Isabella "Maggie" Balfour in 1848 and their son was the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who caused him much disappointment by failing to follow the engineering interests of his family. Maggie Balfour was the older sister of James Balfour.[2]

Thomas Stevenson was a devout and regular attender at St. Stephen's Church in St Stephen's Place, Silvermills, at the north end of St Vincent Street, Edinburgh.

He was involved in regrettable efforts to rubbish the inventions of John Richardson Wigham.[4]

In 1869, as a successful experiment into using the newly invented electric light for lighthouses, Stevenson had an underwater cable installed from the eastern part of Granton Harbour, and a light on the end of the Trinity Chain Pier was controlled from half a mile away by an operator on the harbour.[5][6]

He examined wind and wave effects, and his analysis [7] is the first quantitative discussion of wave height as a (square root) function of fetch. His paper [8] is one of the first quantitative studies of windspeeds in the planetary boundary layer. Motivated by practical applications, these are fundamental contributions.

He died in Edinburgh and is buried in the Stevenson family plot in New Calton Cemetery.

Lighthouses designed by Thomas Stevenson

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Tyndall A Story of Lighthouses page 827
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Stevenson, T. The Design and Construction of Harbors: A Treatise on Maritime Engineering, second ed. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh
  8. ↑ Stevenson, T. (1880) Report on Simultaneous Observations of the Force of Wind at Different Heights above the Ground, Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society, LI-LIV, pp.103–107

External links

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