The National Trust for Scotland’s St Kilda archives

St Kilda is an isolated archipelago situated around 40 miles west of North Uist and forms part of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It’s the UK’s only dual UNESCO World Heritage Site, having gained this prestigious status for both its natural and cultural heritage. It’s also home to nearly one million seabirds, including the UK’s largest colony of Atlantic puffins.

In August 2020, we commemorated the 90th anniversary of the evacuation of the last remaining islanders. The 36 inhabitants of Hirta, St Kilda’s main island, were taken to the Scottish mainland to begin new lives in the late summer of 1930.

In the years after 1930, St Kilda was used as a nature reserve, having been bought by the Earl of Dumfries (later the 5th Marquess of Bute) from MacLeod of MacLeod, the long-time owner of the islands. The Earl was an expert ornithologist and bought St Kilda specifically to use the islands as a bird sanctuary.

When the islands came to the Trust in 1957, along with them came a collection of letters, books and other items. Since that time this collection, known as the ‘Bute Box’, has been augmented with many donations and gifts from members of the public. Together they form the Trust’s St Kilda archive, currently held at our Head Office in Edinburgh.

Here we look at some selections from the various series of archives in the collection.

Diaries and journals

Alice MacLachlan diaries

On our website we have previously published the early 20th-century diaries written by Alice MacLachlan, wife of the then Minister of St Kilda, Peter MacLachlan. These three volumes cover the seven-month period prior to the MacLachlans going to St Kilda, and then describes their time on the islands between August 1906 and May 1909.

Alice MacLachlan (née Scroggie) was born in 1872, the fourth child of six to John Mackie Scroggie and his wife Mary. Initially they lived in Haddington, East Lothian, although Alice was later educated in Lincolnshire before going into teaching in York. She married the Reverend Peter MacLachlan in June 1899. Their first joint position was in the village of Garve, north of Inverness.

In January 1906 the MacLachlans received a letter saying they were being transferred to St Kilda. Initially, the couple had their misgivings about this new posting but Alice’s diaries reveal they soon settled into St Kilda. Her diaries offer an extraordinary insight into day-to-day St Kildan life, mentioning several of the then residents of the island.

This extract from volume one of Alice’s diaries describes the period when she and Peter arrived on St Kilda in August 1906. She describes the few weeks prior to their voyage, relating their journey throughout Scotland visiting friends and family before finally being taken to St Kilda by the SS Hebrides.

Read more extracts from Alice MacLachlan’s diaries:

The St Kilda Diaries: 1 to 14 March 1909

The St Kilda Diaries: 15 to 31 March 1909

The St Kilda Diaries: 1 to 14 April 1909

The St Kilda Diaries: 15 to 30 April 1909

The St Kilda Diaries: 1 to 10 May 1909

Other journals

After the evacuation, people continued to visit St Kilda. Some of the islanders went back to stay in their former homes during the summer and there were also annual boat trips aboard vessels such as the SS Hebrides and the Dunara Castle.

One of those visitors was Elizabeth Ferguson, who made a journey to the Western Isles, including St Kilda, aboard the Hebrides in July 1931. She kept a travel journal documenting her voyage, complete with photographs. This was donated to our St Kilda archive in 2010 by her niece. In one extract, Elizabeth mentions how disappointed she was not to have made the trip to St Kilda prior to the evacuation (ie the year before), but then says she was glad because it would have been a ‘pitiful sight’.

John Ross journal

John Ross was a schoolteacher who went to St Kilda in the summer of 1889, and while there he observed all that was happening on the islands. He later recorded his reflections in this beautifully handwritten journal, which came as part of the Bute Box of archives.

This extract describes ‘Steamer Day, that time when visiting ships carrying tourists would land at Hirta’. Ross noted how the islanders, who had previously spent time producing goods to sell to the tourists would ‘… crowd to the shore carrying eggs and others cloth stockings to be offered for sale to visitors …’

In another part of this extract Ross describes the houses the islanders inhabited; how they were all the same type and how the interiors of the houses are anything but salubrious! The end of the volume contains copies of letters written to a Mr Campbell, who was greatly interested in St Kilda and its inhabitants.

Correspondence

In the Bute Box of archives is a set of correspondence to the Earl of Dumfries from various people covering different topics. These range from letters requesting permission for visits to St Kilda; information regarding Soay sheep; correspondence pertaining to ornithology and lists of birds, and various other subjects.

Another collection of correspondence was kindly donated to the Trust in 1999 by a member of the public and contains a series of letters, photos and newspaper clippings. The material all dates from the mid-1960s and predominantly comprises correspondence between the donor’s father and Donald Gillies, a former inhabitant of St Kilda.

The St Kilda archives of the RHASS

A significant series of archives is held by the Trust on long-term loan from the Royal Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) relating to the Kelsall Bequest. In 1857, Mr Charles Kelsall left in his will a large sum of money to: ‘the purchase of such articles and things as may in the judgement of such Treasurer [of the Highland Agricultural Society] but the most fitting for the Inhabitants of the Island of St Kilda ... and distributed amongst the Inhabitants of that Island at the discretion of the said Treasurer.’ (RHASS St Kilda archives, 10/03)

The society were to be the administrators of this bequest and over the next 40 or so years they accumulated a significant collection of archives – letters mainly – relating to the islands and islanders and how the money was spent. This collection was deposited with the Trust on long-term loan in 1996.

Within this collection (shown above) is the original scale plan of Village Bay in 1860, showing the position of each islander’s house and the extent of land held. Many of the houses were destroyed by a storm of October 1860. It’s thought these houses were the kind of Hebridean ‘blackhouses’ prevalent in the islands at that time, as depicted in this lovely illustration.

After the storm of 1860, new dwellings were built. Captain Otter from the ship Porcupine, a regular visitor to St Kilda and mentioned in the document below, saw the effects of the storm and helped to facilitate supplies to the islands to assist the inhabitants.

Captain Otter’s frequent visits to the islands led to him being highly regarded by the islanders, who saw him as a great friend to them. Certainly, the many letters in the collection written by him to Mr Maxwell, the RHASS secretary administering the Kelsall fund, indicate his great fondness for the island and islanders.

The document below is an agreement dated May 1861, about the building of the new houses to specifications set down by MacLeod and the Secretary of the RHASS. On the reverse of this document are the signatures, or rather the marks, of the St Kildans.