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. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

ed off

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

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

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, 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 England, 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 w ...

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to carry fruit from the

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London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

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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, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

). 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 colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

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, 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 line is a commuter railway line in the city of Melbourne, Australia. Operated by Metro Trains Melbourne, it is the city's fourth shortest metropolitan railway line at . The line runs from Flinders Street station in central Melb ...

overpass at Balaclava station commissioned by the

City of Port Phillip The City of Port Phillip is a Local government areas of Victoria, 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 pop ...

. 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. The budget was tight 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 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 Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, 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''.

Citations

References

* ''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 1834 ships