On August 29th 1930 the population of St Kilda archipelago were evacuated.
Huddled together near the stern of HMS Harebell they were conveyed from Village Bay on Hirta, the largest of the St Kildan islands, on a 17-hour voyage to mainland Scotland. Most of the islanders disembarked at Lochaline in the Morvern peninsula, a Gaelic-speaking area, and, as planned, many worked for the Forestry Commission. The remainder alighted at Oban and dispersed more widely to Inverness, Portree, Culross and Stromeferry.
Whilst the authorities hoped the evacuation would receive minimal attention, it was inevitable that an exodus from such an iconic island attracted the exuberant media attention as it did, indeed 92 years later it still holds a fascination with people the world over.
Observing tradition, the islanders left an open Bible and a small pile of oats in each house,leaving the houses unlocked, and at 7am boarded the Harebell.
Although exhausted by the strain and hard work of the last few days, they were reported to have remained cheerful throughout the operation. Finally, at 8am the ship pulled away from the St Kildans’ homeland, the only one they had known.
As they steamed eastwards and the familiar outline of the island grew faint, the severing of an ancient tie became a reality and the St Kildans gave way to tears.
The women stood at the stern of the Harebell, their shawls around their heads, waving goodbye to the island until it was out of sight.
The shy people from Village Bay did not expect the throng that surrounded them” at Lochaline pier. One of the islanders, Lachlan Macdonald, recalled: “There was an awful lot of reporters and journalists there… As far as I can make out, they were thinking when they were coming from St Kilda that they were odd folk who didn’t know anything, they were more like wild beasts … a curiosity, just as if you were going to the zoo to see some wild beast or something like that.”
Not for the first time in the historiography of St Kilda, the drama of evacuation further enhanced the island group’s iconic status popularly rooted in its environmental and cultural distinctiveness.
The islanders left behind their village on Hirta – the only island that was inhabited – consisting of a single street of stone-walled houses built in the 19th century to replace earlier dwellings known as black houses that still stand, their roofs covered with turf.
Generations had struggled to scrape a living from the unforgiving land far out in the Atlantic, but the 20th century had finally caught up with the harsh reality of existence there. It was a brutal process, as they carried their possessions and their furniture on their backs to the pier, the men had the unenviable task of drowning their working dogs in the sea, as they were not allowed to take them with them to the mainland, it was either that or leave them to starve, a very harsh ending to their life on the archipelago. Their cats were left to fend for themselves, but from what I can gather were eventually all killed off by the military over the next few years.
St Kilda is not unique, other Scottish Islands were abandoned beforehand, most notably, Handa, off Sutherland which met its doom in the 1840s. Mingulay, in the Outer Hebrides that was deserted by 1912. In previous posts I have also told you about one of the most recent islands to be “abandoned” Scarp, in the Outer Hebrides.
The Islands of St Kilda though had become a curiosity, a sort of freak show for tourists to observe, several operators take people to St Kilda to see what has been left behind, researchers and volunteers live on the island during the summer months and since 1957 people have lived on the main island of Hirta on a temporary basis to operate a military radar station.
In 2016 the last surviving resident of those evacuated from St Kilda, died. Rachel Johnson was born at Hirta in July 1922 and was eight years old when she, her family and other islanders left the isle. She settled in Clydebank and she lived there the rest of her life.
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