Stevenson Macadam


Stevenson Macadam FRSE FIC FCS FSSA was a Scottish scientist, analytical chemist, lecturer, and academic author.
He was a founding member of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and a founding member of the Society of Chemical Industry. He was also a President of the Royal Scottish Society of the Arts. He was a prominent lecturer in chemistry at institutions in Edinburgh, including Edinburgh University and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh veterinary colleges. He also had a large analytical chemical consulting practise.
He was part of a small dynasty of Scottish chemical scientists including his elder half-brother William Macadam, brother Dr. John Macadam and two sons, William Ivison Macadam and Stevenson J. C. G. Macadam and granddaughter Elison A. Macadam.
Stevenson Macadam was born at North Bank in Glasgow on 27 April 1829, one of four sons and four daughters. He married on 23 April 1855 in Neilston, Renfrew, Scotland Jessie Andrew Ivison

His Father

His father William Macadam was a Burgess and a Bailie of Glasgow.
He was a third generation Burgess of a family of at least ten Burgesses and Guild brothers of Glasgow. William was the eldest son of John McAdam, John in turn was the eldest son of Alexander McAdam. Alexander was in turn the eldest son of an earlier John McAdam, Tanner, of Glasgow.
William was a Glasgow businessman who owned a mill and textile printing works at Greenholme, Kilmarnock. He and his fellow industrialists in the craft around Glasgow had developed the expertise in chemistry processes for the large scale industrial printing of fabrics for which these plants in the area became well known, both for domestic and foreign supply.
William Macadam and his family lived at 169 East George Street, Glasgow, Scotland. and Stevenson's mother was his father's second wife Helen Stevenson. Helen Stevenson was born 24 August 1803. The wedding took place on 3 January 1825 at Clackmannan. She was the second child of William Stevenson and Helen Grindlay. She died on 20 January 1857 at 6 Kelvinhaugh Street, Glasgow, and was buried with her husband in Glasgow Cathedral Old Burial Ground in the Macadam tomb.

Father's wives and their children

William's first wife was Rachel Gentle with whom he had one son:
William Macadam', the eldest child, was the first chemical scientist in the family, and a half brother to Stevenson.
William's second wife was Helen Stevenson with whom he had a further seven children:
Helen Grindlay Macadam
John Macadam who later emigrated to Australia.
Stevenson Macadam, the subject of this entry, was the third son.
Margaret Macadam
Charles Thomas Macadam a younger brother became senior partner in Odams, a fertiliser company, and was to hold the Royal Warrant as Purveyor of Chemical Manures to Queen Victoria.
George Robert Macadam, his youngest brother, followed his older brother John and emigrated to Australia.
Mary Elison Macadam

Education

Stevenson studied at the Glasgow Mechanics Institution; College of Science and Arts. He received his first tuition at the Mechanics Institution under his elder brother John Macadam after whom the Macadamia nut was later named.
He received his doctorate from Giessen University. Whilst in Germany he also spent some time working in the famous laboratory of Robert Bunsen.
John Macadam then became assistant to Dr. George Wilson, Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine from 1846 to 1847. The University of Edinburgh Medical School was then as now one of the world's preeminent medical centres of learning and from then on preeminent in the field of chemistry. Afterwards John Macadam returned to Glasgow for further medical studies.
Stevenson then became Dr. George Wilson's assistant, in his brother's stead, at the University of Edinburgh and at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1847 to 1855.
It seems likely that the various types of complex chemical processes involved in their father's factory in his calico printing and manufacturing business was what got William's sons interested in the field of chemistry, in which they were to play such a pioneering role in their later lives. Of the four sons three took to chemical science as a profession. Subsequently, two more generations were involved: Stevenson's two sons William Ivison Macadam and Stevenson J. C. G. Macadam and William Ivison Macadam's daughter, Elison Macadam. Seven in all l.

Professional and academic career

In 1850 Dr. Stevenson Macadam began lecturing in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and became a professor there.
In 1855 he also began lecturing in Chemistry for pharmaceutical students on his own. He did this from quarters on Princes Street, Edinburgh
In 1855, Dr. Macadam was appointed Lecturer on Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and the University of Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine after Dr. George Wilson was appointed Regis Professor of Technology at Edinburgh University although Dr. Wilson retained his rooms at Surgeons Hall. During that time Dr. Macadam conducted his large classes in Adam Square at the School of Arts, with which he had been connected for several years. His three-year course led to the qualification ChB, representing a full understanding of medical drugs and their properties. A huge number of Scotland's medical and veterinarian elite passed through his course.
Dr. Macadam was a successful lecturer and his classes were very well attended and "were a standing memorial" to his power of teaching in the view of The Scotsman.
In 1866 a larger lecture hall and laboratory was built at Surgeons Hall and he was then again able to hold his classes there.
He also lectured at both Edinburgh's veterinary colleges. First at The Dick Veterinary College, later to become Royal School of Veterinary Studies, the Veterinary School of the University of Edinburgh,. It was founded by William Dick in 1923 and was the first veterinary school in Scotland.
Subsequently, from 1873, Dr. Macadam lectured at the "New Veterinary College" housed in Gayfield House, following its foundation by William Williams in 1873. He was one of the original six staff
Dr. Macadam remained on the staff of the New Veterinary College until it moved to its newly built campus at Elm Row in 1883, when he resigned in favour of his son Professor Ivison Macadam..
On Dr. Macadam's retirement in 1900 he had completed fifty years as a lecturer, forty-five of which had been as an independent.
He also had a large analytical chemical consulting practice and was sought after for expertise in his field.
He acted as Scientific Advisor to the Northern Lighthouse Board of Scotland.

Learned societies

1854 Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society of the Arts.
1855 Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
1877 A founder of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain.
1881 A founder of the Society of Chemical Industry in London.
1900 Institute of Chemistry GBI Council Member

Publications

He was the author of many papers on scientific subjects such as water supply, drainage and on chemistry to the arts and manufacturing.
Among them were:

Residences

He lived from the late 1860s at Brighton House, 11 East Brighton Crescent in Portobello, Edinburgh, where he died, having previously lived at the addresses of the places of his children's births at their birth dates below.
The family also had a country retreat in Innerleithen. There he was able to engage in his favourite outdoor pursuits, fly fishing on the Tweed and Leithen Water, hill walking, rowing and following the Otter Hounds.
Stevenson Macadam's granddaughter remembers Brighton House, Portebello as:
"a large one built with a semi basement in the front and a full storey basement at the back. The dining room was a long room with three windows looking out to the front and an impressive fireplace guarded by “Knights” in armour.... Behind the dining room stretched a passageway that led to a number of rooms. The drawing-room above the dining room, was full of curios and museum pieces... The parlour was at the back of a spacious hall which reached up to the top of the house. The three parlour windows went down to the floor... the far windows opened on to a balcony...and steps led down into the garden where “Nero” the large great dane lived, also numerous fantailed pigeons. Along one side of the garden was a range of greenhouses with temperatures from medium to warm. Grannie used to spend a lot of time tending to her hothouse flowers - we children often got into trouble when Thomas - the gardener coachman - reported doors left open. A large weeping willow with wooden seat around the trunk grew in the middle of the lawn and here we used to have strawberry feasts in season."
"Connected with the principal bedrooms at the back of the house were semi-circular turrets ending in peaks in the roof - like a Scottish castle - these were really W.C.s reached from the bedrooms." Steps from the hall led down to the kitchen quarters that seemed to go on forever.
"The kitchen was a large one, two storeys high, nearby was a big store room which generally had hams, plum puddings and such like hanging from hooks in the ceiling."

Politics and Church

Dr. Macadam had been a member of the Liberal Party but later became a Unionist.
He was a member of The Church of Scotland and was a church elder at Duddingston Kirk. A stained glass window to his memory is erected there. He also helped found and build St. James's Church, at Rosefield Place, Portobello.

Recreations

He was active in outdoor and country sports while leading a busy professional life.
A keen fly fisherman for both trout and salmon. He was President of the Edinburgh Angling Club at the time of his death.
He was a regular follower of the Dumfriesshire Otter Hounds.
An ardent walker and good rower.

Wife and children

He married Jessie Andrew Ivison in Renfrew in 1855. They had five children:
While fishing on the River Tweed at Clovenfords, a stretch of water belonging to the Edinburgh Angling Club, of which he was president, he injured himself, which resulted in blood poisoning and complications and he died rather unexpectedly a week later on 24 January 1901, aged 72.
He is buried in Portobello Cemetery in eastern Edinburgh. The grave lies midway along the original eastern path. His wife and second son lie with him. His son William Ivison Macadam and grandson Sir Ivison Macadam lie around 20m to the south.