Britain’s ‘ghost’ island: Tragic reason why last residents of remote archipelago left 95 years ago today

Modernity, to live on land and eat seabed to survive – some may think that it sounds a bit romantic.

But for the British, this lifestyle was too much for the British.

On August 29, 1930 – exactly 95 years ago today – the remaining 36 residents of the remote archipelago in the external Hebrides left their homes for the last time.

As moving photographs showed, they pulled their belongings to the boats, with sheep and cattle that helped them and their ancestors survive for generations.

As the Daily Mail reported at that time, the Gaelic -speaking Islanders had never seen any train or tram, but now they would experience the traps of modern life.

Their Scottish motherland marked the end of the 4,000 -year -old human settlement in the Tiny Island Group.

And as he explained a letter sent to the Foreign Minister of the Foreign Affairs at the time, it was necessary to evacuate in winter, and probably would not have the men they needed to ‘bend sheep, weaving, and look at the general welfare of the widows’.

On May 10, 1930, the islanders asked for help.

Smiling St Kilda residents carry their belongings on their backs as they leave their belongings for the last time.

The letter went to the captain of the first trawl and soon went to the Public Health Inspector George Henderson St Kilda and reported that ‘fast action’ to remove the inhabitants.

However, the archipelago was not unhappy. Instead, many birds of the island lost their neighbors.

Today, since 1957, St Kilda, which is the maintenance of the National Foundation of the Scotland, has been home to England’s largest Atlantic Puffins colony.

The island group is also the only pair of UNESCO World Heritage site for natural and cultural heritage.

St Kilda consists of five islands in the North Atlantic, 100 miles away from the west coast of Scotland – Hirta (Ana Island), Soay, Boraray, Dun and Levenish.

There was no saint named Kilda.

Instead, it is thought that the name of the islands is derived from the old Scandinavian Skilir (Shields), which refers to the remote appearance.

Perhaps because of its willingness to be isolated from the modern life in the mainland, the islanders became a touristic center of attraction during the Late Victorian period.

St. Kilda’s evacuation. Last residents left on August 29, 1930

Letter of the Islanders sent to the Scottish Minister of Foreign Affairs in May 1930

The brave wanders switched from the motherland to the coarse to see them closely.

The islanders survived by holding sheep and cattle and raising food plants.

The mainstay of their diets were seasides, especially puffs and gannets; Hunting them proved to be insecure.

Another important part of life was their small churches hosting three services on Sunday.

The people in St Kilda have developed an unusual way to communicate with the outside world from remote island houses – launched a pole on the small waterproof ships.

The only way to contact with other communities living in an archipelago 40 miles west of the external Hebrides was to ask for boats who wanted to carry and transfer their duties there in the summer months.

Journalist John Sands revealed the idea of ​​creating a mail boat when he was stranded there in the 1870s.

Nine days later, a postal boat released in 1877 at Birsay in Orkney, and a boat was sent to save the Austrian sailors in the burgundy of the burgundy in St Kilda.

A child selling eggs in ST Kilda while residents leaving the last time, 1930

During the evacuation of the island, native in a st clay selling seafood eggs

St Kilda’s natives were seen on a small boat as they moved towards the ferries that would take them to the motherland.

St. Kilda’s evacuation. Sheep is seen to be removed from the island

There were six cows among those who had to swim from the pier.

In St Kilda, the residents were depicted with their belongings while preparing to leave the island

A few years later, Mailboats helped to help the islanders in September 1885 when they met hunger after the food stores were ruined after a violent storm.

Alexander Gillies Ferguson, a 14 -year -old school child, had heard the postal boats developed by Sands and launched five ships containing messages that require help.

One of the boats soon came to Lewis, Gallan Head and sent aid to the islanders.

For decades, St Killdans continued to use mail boats to contact the outside world – and some reached the Scottish mainland, while others swam up to Iceland, Denmark and Norway.

Mailboats is made of a series of materials placed on a waterproof cap with a tin or bottle and a float made of a wooden piece of wood or a float made of a swollen sheep skin.

In 1930, in the aid of separation, the islanders wrote: ‘Manpower for several years is decreasing. Now the total population of the island has been reduced to 36.

‘Several men from this number, this year, we certainly made our minds to go to this kind of employment in the mainland.

‘This will really cause a crisis, because the current number is not enough to maintain the necessary work of the place.

In St Kilda residents, posing for a photo for one of the Albanian cobblestone streets of the island

Striters are seen together, September 1926

Three generations of women in ST KILDA Architects in Outdoor Hebrides, 1880

Calmly st clale watch visitors show the art of Spinning, 1926

Fowler in three st clains are posing for a photo. The image was turned into a postcard

In the late 19th century

Stril in St clay sits on the sewing machine

The old inhabitants of St Kilda returned in the 1980s. Rachel Johnson, the last survival, died in 2016 at the age of 93

‘These men are now the basis of the island because they are prone to sheep, weaving and look at the general welfare of the widows.

‘If they leave the conditions of the rest of the community, it would be impossible for us to stay on another winter island.’

The fall of the population began after the First World War, when most young men were separated.

The population fell from 73 to 37 in 1928 in 1920. In 1926, there was an epidemic of influenza that killed four men on the island.

A series of crop failures followed this tragedy.

Experts of Aberdeen University, examined the land of the crops of the islanders.

It is a last photo of the main street of St Kilda once. Some houses were restored

A new image of St Kilda. Ada is now deserted

Care of Scotland National confidence since 1957

They found that metallic pollutants polluted the floor. It is believed that pollutants infiltrated the land from the carcasses of seabed.

The last tragedy before the release arrived in January 1930, when the young woman Mary Gillies died of appendicitis.

During the evacuation, Sir Reginald Macleod, who had the island group, was the chief of Court and Courtier History Clan Macleod.

In 1931, he sold St Kilda to Lord Marquess, Lord Dumfries.

In the same year, ST Kilda was reported to be suppressed by ‘Pirates’.

It was said that the crew of a foreign troll played something valuable from the houses and farm buildings.

The report in the Daily Mail added: ‘Locked doors and windows were torn apart and there was immoral destruction everywhere.’

Today, Gezici can visit St Kilda every day with a boat separated from the village of Leverburgh in the external Hebrides.