Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson[5] at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850 to Margaret Isabella Balfour (1829–1897) and Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), a leading lighthouse engineer.[6] Lighthouse design was the family profession: Thomas's own father (Robert's grandfather) was the famous Robert Stevenson, while Thomas's maternal grandfather, Thomas Smith, and brothers, Alan and David, were also in the business.[7] On Margaret's side, the family were gentry, tracing their name back to an Alexander Balfour, who held the lands of Inchrye in Fife in the fifteenth century. Her father, Lewis Balfour (1777–1860), was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton.[8] Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his house. "Now I often wonder," wrote Stevenson, "what I inherited from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them.