It would appear that his education there was interrupted – perhaps because his parents had had to withdraw him due to an inability to pay school fees – for when he enrolled in 1887 he had a previous admission number.
[citation needed] Stevenson joined the Johnnie Walker whisky blending company in 1888, working his way up to become its joint Managing Director.
[1] During the First World War he was appointed to a senior position in the Ministry of Munitions and in return for his service was created a Baronet, of Walton Heath in the Parish of Walton-on-the-Hill in the County of Surrey, on 11 April 1917.
[2] After the war he continued in government service and from 1921 he worked as a personal adviser to Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies.
He was raised to the peerage as Baron Stevenson, of Holmbury in the County of Surrey, on 7 May 1924,[4] during the first premiership of Ramsay MacDonald.