The ''Lady of St Kilda'' was a schooner which served from 1834 before being

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

ed off

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austra ...

shortly after 1843.Lady of St Kilda
It is notable for its cultural importance to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

where it was moored in the 1840s. Several places in bayside Melbourne, including the suburb of St Kilda, and the former municipality the City of St Kilda (now part of the City of Port Phillip) take its name from the ship, its owner and captain.

History

The schooner was bought by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, a member of a prominent British political family in 1834. Built in

Dartmouth, Devon Dartmouth () is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the western bank of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes. It lies within ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

to carry fruit from the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

it was named ''Lady of St Kilda'' after the island of St Kilda in the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coas ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

to commemorate a visit to the island by his wife, Lydia, in 1812. Thomas Acland sold the vessel in 1840 to Jonathan Cundy Pope of Plymouth. The vessel was again used as a trading vessel and sailed for Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne in February 1841. The vessel was usually moored off the foreshore, which was soon known as "the St. Kilda foreshore." In July 1842, the ''Lady of St Kilda'' sailed for Canton (now

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

). The vessel was sold in Tahiti for £1,200 in 1844. In November 1844, she was wrecked on a

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of Colony (biology), colonies of coral polyp (zoology), polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, wh ...

Legacy

The ship's legacy includes the naming of the town (and later city) St Kilda by Superintendent (later Lieutenant-Governor) Charles Joseph La Trobe. One of the town's main streets,

Acland Street Acland Street is a street in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, which enjoys great popularity as a recreational area, mainly due to its many restaurants and its proximity to the entertainment areas along St Kilda beach Acland Street runs o ...

, was named after the former owner Sir Thomas Dyke Acland. There is a mural of the ''Lady of St Kilda'' on the

Sandringham railway line The Sandringham railway line is a suburban railway line in Melbourne, Australia. It branches from other southeastern suburban rail lines (inferred as the " Caulfield group") at South Yarra station. It serves the City of Bayside, and small se ...

overpass at Balaclava station commissioned by the

City of Port Phillip The City of Port Phillip is a local government area of Victoria, Australia on the northern shores of Port Phillip, south of Melbourne's central business district. It has an area of 20.7 km² and had a population of 113,200 in June 2018. ...

. The Lady of St Kilda sculpture on the Carlisle Street Bridge was commissioned by the St Kilda Council in 1993 as a result of a competition and the mural was completed on 29 November 1993. The artist who designed the sculpture was Alex Nemirovsky.Lady of St Kilda page on Alex Nemirovsky's website
/ref> His father, Ruv Nemirovsky, a sculptor, helped him design and mould the metal sculptures in a factory and they were then brought to St Kilda. Architects Kirsten and Eric Hoak made the frames for the sculptures to fit on the bridge. There was a limited budget and Alex gratefully received the aid of his brother- in –law, Constantine Kozelsky, who helped weld and cut the metal in the workshop. He was also lucky to have sponsorship from Dulux Paints. A large number of volunteers helped him and the final construction on the railway bridge was completed by ten workmen taking two nights for each side of the bridge, which incidentally had to be done in the dead of night after the trains stopped running. The sculpture was restored by the City of Port Phillip in 2014. A scale model of the ''Lady of St Kilda'' by retired boatbuilder John MacAulay is now exhibited in the Kilda Cruises Centre on the

Isle of Harris Harris ( gd, Na Hearadh, ) is the southern and more mountainous part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Although not an island itself, Harris is often referred to in opposition to the ''Isle of Lewis'' as t ...

in Scotland. A book describing her complete history entitled 'Lady of St Kilda' by John M MacAulay is now available from Amazon and other booksellers. Despite its huge popularity, a 2006 art installation by a different artist, depicting a mock shipwreck at St Kilda Main Beach was later disassembled by the City of Port Phillip because of public safety concerns despite calls to keep it. The bell from the ''Lady of St Kilda'' hangs over the doorway of the Chapel of St Leonard, Tivington in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

, England. Image:Lady of st kilda mural.jpg, ''Lady of St Kilda'' mural on the railway overpass over the main shopping strip on Carlisle Street, Balaclava Image:Lady of st kilda wreck.jpg, ''Lady of St Kilda'' sculpture at St Kilda main beach (now removed) File:Acland and Fitzroy Sts commemorative plaque.JPG, Memorial plaque to first Crown land sale in St Kilda to Lieut James Ross Lawrence, Captain of the schooner ''Lady of St Kilda''.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

* ''Lady of St Kilda'' John M MacAulay. {{1844 shipwrecks Schooners Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean Ships built in Dartmouth Maritime incidents in November 1844 History of Melbourne