St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle

St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle (1928) is a short, silent film about St Kilda, an isolated archipelago to the west of Scotland, and the final period of its habitation.

In the 1920s, John McCallum & Co., the steamship company running a service between Glasgow and St Kilda, commissioned the 18-minute silent documentary film, directed by Paul Robello and Bobbie Mann. Filmed primarily in 1923, it included scenes and people on Hirta, the main island of the archipelago.[1] The film shows the St Kilda men hunting fulmar on the cliff face. It was released in 1928.[2] The permanent population of St Kilda was evacuated in 1930.

The film is available for viewing on the National Library of Scotland web site.[1]

In May 2010, the film was inscribed in UNESCO's UK Memory of the World Register.[3][4]

See also

• SS Hebrides
• The Edge of the World (1937)

Notes

1. "ST. KILDA - BRITAIN'S LONELIEST ISLE". National Library of Scotland. 12 February 2008. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Research suggests scenes on the island of Hirta taken in May 1923, with later footage of the voyage to the St Kilda islands taken c. 1928.
2. "St. Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle (1923/28)" www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
3. "2010 UK Memory of the World Register", United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO, 2010. Accessed 4 June 2011.
4. "Edinburgh library treasures to go on world stage", BBC, 14 July 2010. Accessed 4 June 2011.

External links

• St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle at IMDb