文档介绍：RECORDS OF A FAMILY OF ENGINEERS
RECORDS OF A
FAMILY OF ENGINEERS
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
1
RECORDS OF A FAMILY OF ENGINEERS
INTRODUCTION
THE SURNAME OF STEVENSON
FROM the thirteenth century onwards, the name, under the various
disguises of Stevinstoun, Stevensoun, Stevensonne, Stenesone, and
Stewinsoune, spread across Scotland from the mouth of the Firth of Forth
to the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. Four times at least it occurs as a
place-name. There is a parish of Stevenston in Cunningham; a second
place of the name in the Barony of Bothwell in Lanark; a third on Lyne,
above Drochil Castle; the fourth on the Tyne, near Traprain Law.
Stevenson of Stevenson (co. Lanark) swore fealty to Edward I in 1296,
and the last of that family died after the Restoration. Stevensons of
Hirdmanshiels, in Midlothian, rode in the Bishops' Raid of Aberlady,
served as jurors, stood bail for neighbours - Hunter of Polwood, for
instance - and became extinct about the same period, or possibly earlier.
A Stevenson of Luthrie and another of Pitroddie make their bows, give
their names, and vanish. And by the year 1700 it does not appear that
any acre of Scots land was vested in any Stevenson. (1)
(1) An error: Stevensons owned at this date the barony of
Dolphingston in Haddingtonshire, Montgrennan in Ayrshire, and several
other lesser places.
Here is, so far, a melancholy picture of backward progress, and a
family posting towards extinction. But the law (however administered,
and I am bound to aver that, in Scotland, `it couldna weel be waur') acts as
a kind of dredge, and with dispassionate impartiality brings up into the
light of day, and shows us for a moment, in the jury-box or on the gallows,
the creeping things of the past. By these broken glimpses we are able to
trace the existence of many other and more inglorious Stevensons, picking
a private way through the brawl that makes Scots history. They were
members of Parliament for Peebles, Stirlin