STEVENSON FAMILY CONNECTION

The article about Robert Louis Stevenson’s visits (“‘Glad did I live and gladly die’”, February 9) was interesting but could have made more of the fact that he had relations living here before and after his time.

On his mother’s side was James Melville Balfour, who worked for the Stevenson family engineering business. He was appointed as marine engineer to the Otago Provincial Government in 1863. He surveyed the Clutha – formerly the Molyneux – River and other places. He designed the Otago dry dock and several lighthouses, including Auckland’s Bean Rock Lighthouse.

Another relation with a New Zealand connection was his stepgrandson, Austin Strong, who drew up the plans for Cornwall Park in Auckland.

A history of New Zealand nurserymen records a visit by RLS to the Montpellier Nursery between Parnell and Remuera to buy trees for the garden at Vailima, his home in Samoa. A family of Stevensons lived not far from this nursery and maintained that RLS visited them “as he was a distant cousin”, and it was from their home that he went down the hill to the nursery. John Webster (Takapuna, Auckland)