Name
Before being officially named St Kilda in 1841 by Charles La Trobe, who was superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, the area was known by several names, including 'Green Knoll' and 'The Village of Fareham'. It was named after the schooner the Lady of St Kilda, which was owned between 1834 and 1840 by Sir Thomas Acland. In 1840 Thomas Acland sold the vessel to Jonathan Cundy Pope of Plymouth who sailed for Port Phillip in Melbourne in February 1841. While there the vessel was moored at the main beach for most of that year, which was soon known as "the St. Kilda foreshore."
There was never a 'Saint' Kilda. The schooner "Lady of St. Kilda" was named in honor of Lady Grange, who was imprisoned on the island of Hirta, the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland, by her husband in 1734–40. According to the United Nations World Conservation Monitoring Centre the name 'St Kilda' derives from Skildar, the Viking name for shields, reflecting the outline of the islands which resembled shields when viewed from the sea. Skildar was transcribed in error by Lucas Waghenaer in his 1592 charts without the trailing r and with a period after the S, creating S.Kilda. This was in turn assumed to stand for a saint by other map makers, creating the form that has been used for several centuries, St Kilda.
Read more about this topic: St Kilda, Victoria
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