St Kilda: My Island Home

Christina MacDonald MacQueen (1884–1959) was born on St Kilda and grew up there at the close of the 19th century. Yearning for the bright modern world beyond the island, she was the first woman to leave of her own accord in 1909, settling in Glasgow. During the crisis that led to the islands' evacuations in 1929-30, she wrote a series of passionate articles about her childhood and the history of the islands. These writings about St Kilda offer a personal and uniquely female perspective on the island's story and its imminent abandonment.

This book includes all seventeen of her articles, which tell the full history of the island as she understood it, and sets their publication against the dates of the evacuation. These are complemented by a historical introduction and commentary. Despite extensive literature on the story of St Kilda, Christina's contributions have been largely overlooked by historians, though they offer valuable insights into the island's history and the evacuation's impact. To compliment the articles written by Christina, this volume includes a collection of photographs taken by her husband, Robert Chalmers, in 1930.



Dr Michelle Craig is a Scottish historian at the University of Glasgow, specialising in book and archive history and information studies.

Dr Miles Kerr-Peterson is an independent scholar, primarily interested in early modern Scottish politics, culture and society, but also regional studies related to Scottish Lordship throughout its history.



'Here's, literally, a case of survival – with memories being accepted by editors, formulated into articles not published in books, stored and, finally, resurrected'