Basic Biographical Details
| Name: | D Alan Stevenson |
| Designation: | |
| Born: | 7 February 1891 |
| Died: | 22 December 1971 |
| Bio Notes: | D Alan Stevenson was the son of Charles A. Stevenson and Margaret, daughter of Lieutenant-General John P. Sherriff. Educated at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University where he gained his BSc in 1914. He had joined the family business in 1912 and after serving as a Captain in the Royal Marines during the First World War, he was taken into partnership in 1919. By the 1920’s the great days of lighthouse building in Scotland had ended and the firm were increasingly involved in the maintenance of lighthouse stations and the modernization of equipment. Alternatives were sought and in 1925–26 he surveyed over 100 lighthouses from Siam to Aden for a report to Government of India, while in the 1930s, he superintended the deepening of the Clyde from Port Glasgow westwards, to allow the passage of the Queen Mary after her launch. By 1936 D Alan Stevenson had grown impatient with the uncertainty of obtaining the post of engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board which David Stevenson, then aged eighty-one still held. The resulting disagreement resulted in David Stevenson's withdrawal from D. and C. Stevenson, thereby ending the firm's long-standing association with the NLB. D. and C. Stevenson was reformed in 1936, as A. and C. Stevenson, at 90A George Street, Edinburgh. The new firm's workload was much reduced, relying principally on commissions as joint engineers to the Clyde Lighthouses Trust. In 1940 Charles Stevenson retired, after which Alan Stevenson continued to act solely as the trust's engineer until his own retirement in 1952. By the time of his retirement Alan Stevenson had become increasingly involved in researching his various historical interests. In 1949 he published an account of Robert Stevenson's English Lighthouse Tours, 1801, 1813, 1818. This was followed in 1950 by The Triangular Stamps of Cape of Good Hope, for which he was awarded the Crawford medal of the Royal Philatelic Society and, in 1959, by his authoritative The World's Lighthouses before 1820. He married Jessie Laura Margaret MacLellan (1897–1975) on 5 June 1923. They had one son and two daughters. David Alan Stevenson died on 22 December 1971 at 25 Belgrave Crescent, Edinburgh, and was buried in the Dean cemetery. Wealth at death £160,444 |
Employment and Training
Employees or Pupils
| The following individuals were employed or trained by this (click on an item to view details): | |||||
| Name | Date from | Date to | Position | Notes | |
 | A & C Stevenson | 1936 | 1952 | Partner | |
References
Bibliographic References
| The following books contain references to this : | ||||||
| Author(s) | Date | Title | Part | Publisher | Notes | |
| DNB | Dictionary of National Biography | ||||