On this day in history (August 29, 1930), a chapter of human life quietly ended on a remote Scottish island. The last 36 residents of St Kilda chose to leave their home, bringing to a close an unbroken line of habitation stretching back thousands of years.
Life on the isolated archipelago had become unsustainable. After World War I, the population shrank, and illnesses like influenza devastated the small community. They could no longer sustain their unique way of living, which relied on community cooperation for everything—from farming to scaling the steep cliffs to harvest seabirds.
The islanders themselves asked the government for relocation, a tough choice born out of necessity. On the day they left, each family left an open Bible and a small pile of oats inside their unlocked cottage before making their way down to the pier.
They boarded the ship HMS Harebell, carrying only what they could, and watched their ancestral home vanish into the mist. Their story captured the world’s heart—a touching account of a community surrendering to the pressures of the modern world.
Today, St Kilda is a UNESCO World Heritage site, its empty stone cottages standing as a quiet memorial to a lost way of life.
Sources: National Records of Scotland, contemporary news reports