In-person public talk
Bookable via the NRS Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/national-records-of-scotland-13420221531
Speaker: Dr Alison Morrison-Low

Scotland’s first lighthouse was a coal-burning grate on the top of a tower built in the seventeenth century on the summit of the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, funded by some local landowners. Before that, there were a few scattered markers around the coasts, so that mariners could work out where they were, and steer clear of known hazards. It was some time before a national lighthouse service funded by government got underway, really as a legacy of Scotland’s great inheritance from her Enlightenment years.

This talk will explore how the Northern Lighthouse Board, together with the dynasty of the Stevenson lighthouse engineers, managed to light the extensive and dangerous Scottish coasts by the end of the nineteenth century, at a time of rapidly-improving technology.

Dr Alison Morrison-Low was part of the exhibition team that put together a display in 2011 for the bicentenary of the lighting of the Bell Rock lighthouse, now the world’s oldest standing and working rock lighthouse. She was able to draw upon the magnificent collection -- mostly from the Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers, and the Northern Lighthouse Board — on Scottish sea-marking held by the National Museums of Scotland for the exhibition, and write a book, Northern Lights: The Age of Scottish Lighthouses, which also catalogues the material. Dr Morrison-Low was Principal Curator for Science at National Museum of Scotland.

This talk complements the free NRS exhibition 'For the Safety of All: Scottish Lighthouses' open from 3 August to 25 September and Saturday 26 September at General Register House, Edinburgh. More information can be found on the NRS Exhibitions and Displays page: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/learning-and-events/exhibitions-and-displays/