View source for Lady of St Kilda

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{|{{Infobox ship begin |display title=ital}} <!-- age of sail -->
|+''Lady of St Kilda''
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|Ship image=Lady_of_St_Kilda_sketch_by_Jno._R._Browning.jpg
|Ship caption=Sketch of the Lady of St Kilda by Jno. R. Browning c 1890
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|Ship country=United Kingdom
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|Ship name=Lady of St Kilda
|Ship owner=[[Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet]]
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|Ship builder=Robert Newman
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|Ship launched=1834 at Dartmouth, Devon, England
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|Ship fate=Wrecked November 1844
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|Ship tonnage=139 tons
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The '''''Lady of St Kilda''''' was a schooner which served from 1834 before being [[shipwreck]]ed off [[Tahiti]] shortly after 1843.<ref name=skhs>[http://www.skhs.org.au/~SKHSarticles1/articles/Lady_of_St_Kilda.htm Lady of St Kilda] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716201649/http://www.skhs.org.au/~SKHSarticles1/articles/Lady_of_St_Kilda.htm |date=16 July 2011 }}</ref>

It is notable for its cultural importance to [[Melbourne]], [[Australia]], where it was moored in the 1840s. Several places in bayside Melbourne, including the suburb of [[St Kilda, Victoria|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.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10790749 |title=LADY OF ST. KILDA. |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)]] |issue=20,873 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=18 June 1913 |accessdate=14 August 2017 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article969906 |title=Melbourne Place Names |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)]] |issue=30,862 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=28 July 1945 |accessdate=14 August 2017 |page=24 (The Argus Week-End Magazine) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4239305 |title=HISTORY OF ST. KILDA. |newspaper=[[The Argus (Melbourne)]] |issue=26,319 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 December 1930 |accessdate=14 August 2017 |page=22 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article143280096 |title=THE YACHT ST. KILDA. |newspaper=[[The Australasian]] |volume=XCIII |issue=2,432 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 November 1912 |accessdate=14 August 2017 |page=38 (TOWN EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

==History==
The schooner was bought by [[Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet|Sir Thomas Dyke Acland]], a member of a prominent British political family in 1834. Built in [[Dartmouth, Devon]], [[England]] to carry fruit from the [[Mediterranean]] to [[London]] it was named ''Lady of St Kilda'' after the island of [[St Kilda, Scotland#Origin of names|St Kilda]] in the [[Outer Hebrides]] of [[Scotland]] to commemorate a visit to the island by his wife, Lydia, in 1812.<ref>Fraser MacDonald, St Kilda and the sublime, Ecumene , Vol. 8, No. 2 (April 2001), p.158. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44243658</ref>

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]]).{{citation needed|date=June 2019}} The vessel was sold in Tahiti for £1,200 in 1844.<ref>{{cite news |title=Launceston Examiner |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36237673?searchTerm=%E2%80%9CLady%20of%20St%20Kilda%E2%80%9D |access-date=17 May 2022 |date=24 August 1844}}</ref> In November 1844, she was wrecked on a [[coral reef]] in [[Tahiti]].<ref>Alexander Romanov-Hughes, The ‘Lady of St Kilda’, https://portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/ the-yacht-lady-of-st-kilda/ (accessed 3 August 2022)</ref>

==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.<ref>Garryowen, The Chronicles of Early Melbourne, 1888, Vol.1, p.22.http://arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/3/4/4/7/9/public/B12604185V1.pdf#page=42. Retrieved 30 July 2022</ref>

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]] overpass at [[Balaclava railway station|Balaclava station]] commissioned by the [[City of Port Phillip]]. 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.<ref>[http://stkildanews.com/lady-of-st-kilda/ Lady of St Kilda], By Irene Ritchie, 1 July 2015, St Kilda News</ref>  The artist who designed the sculpture was Alex Nemirovsky.<ref>[http://www.alexnemirovsky.com.au/lady-of-st-kilda/ 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]], England.<ref name="nhle">{{NHLE|desc=Chapel of St Leonard|num=1345394|accessdate=28 August 2017}}</ref>

<gallery>
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
<!-- Deleted image removed: Image:Lady of St Kilda after the 2015 restoration courtesy of ashley photography.jpeg|Photograph of the mural commissioned by the artist after the 2015 restoration -->
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''.
</gallery>

==Citations==
{{reflist|30em}}

==References==
* ''Lady of St Kilda'' John M MacAulay. {{ISBN|978-0-9929180-0-2}}

{{1844 shipwrecks}}

[[Category:Schooners]]
[[Category:Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean]]
[[Category:Ships built in Dartmouth]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in November 1844]]
[[Category:History of Melbourne]]
[[Category:1834 ships]]