A VERY IMPORTANT PENNY BLACK (Pl.1a) on ENTIRE. Posted 3rd AUG1840,SALTCOATS, SCOTLAND.To: “ROBERT STEVENSON ESQ” Engineers,Northern Lighthouses, Edinburgh.(Grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson)
AN HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT PENNY BLACK (Plate 1a) with RED MALTESE CROSS CANCELLATION on ENTIRE.
Posted on 3rd AUGUST 1840 at SALTCOATS, SCOTLAND.
This is the Pladda Lighthouse Keepers Time, Watch & Weather Report for July 1840.
(Backstamped “E” on the Evening of 4th August 1840 at Edinburgh) (“An Extremely Early Item, Sent Just 12 Weeks After the Very Start of Mr Rowland Hill’s New “Penny Post” System on 1st May 1840” )
To:
“ROBERT STEVENSON ESQ” Engineers for the Northern Lighthouses, Edinburgh. (Mr Robert Stevenson was the Grandfather of the world famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island.) This extremely early & historically important entire is a single folded sheet containing is the record of the Pladda Lighthouse Watchkeepers’ Duty & Time Return for the month of July 1840 during which the Keepers John Ewing and Andrew Adamson undertook alternate shifts in manning this most important lighthouse on the South East corner of Arran.
Sent to non other than Robert Stevenson who was the Chief Engineer of the Northern Lighthouses at his office in Edinburgh, this item links a famous Engineer and early lighthouse builder with his even more famous grandson, Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of TREASURE ISLAND. An Exceptionally Good Item of Great International Historical Interest.
£1250