In 1812, Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchas, reminising about the journey from Edinburgh to her home wrote:

Something odd is happening in the Hebrides. After years of recrimination over ‘who owns Scotland’, lairds and crofters are threatening to find an amicable solution to the thorny problem.

For a fortnight in June, 1929, Frank and Betty Lowe were on Hirta, intent on recording bird life, and especially the St Kilda sub-species of the wren. The Lowes, born and bred in Bolton, were newly-wed.

Henry Bell was known as the pioneer of steam navigation and when he came to live in Helensburgh in the early 1800s he found it an agreeable seaside town popular with Glasgow merchants.