HMY Iolaire was an iron-hulled steam yacht that was launched in Scotland in 1881 as Iolanthe. She was renamed Mione in 1898; Iolanthe in 1900; and Amalthæa in 1907. Between 1881 and 1915 a succession of industrialists and aristocrats had owned the yacht. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1915 as HMY Amalthaea, and renamed HMY Iolaire in 1918. She was wrecked in a storm at the mouth of Stornoway harbour on New Year's Day 1919. The disaster killed more than 200 people, including many of the young men of the isles of Lewis and Harris. UK law now protects her wreck as a war grave.
Building
Ramage & Ferguson of Leith on the Firth of Forth built the yacht as yard number 28, and launched her on 30 April 1881. Her registered length was , her beam was , and her depth was . Her tonnages were and . She had a single screw, driven by a two-cylinder compound engine that was made by Matthew Paul & Co of Dumbarton and rated at 110 NHP. She had two masts, and was rigged as a schooner.
Owners and registration
The yachts first name was Iolanthe, a woman's forename. It predates Gilbert and Sullivan's use of the name for their comic opera Iolanthe, which was premiered in 1882. Iolanthes first owner was a Thomas J Waller of Holland Park, London. She was registered in London. Her United Kingdom official number was 85043, and her code letters were WBHD.
By 1889 Mortimer Singer, son of the sewing machine manufacturer Isaac Singer, had acquired Iolanthe and registered her in New York. By 1890 Sir Donald Currie, founder of the Castle Mail Packet Company, had acquired her, and reverted her registration to London. By 1892 her tonnages had been revised to and .
thumb|upright|[[Violet Graham, Duchess of Montrose, painted in 1912 by Philip de László]]
By 1898 Douglas Graham, 5th Duke of Montrose had acquired her and renamed her Mione, and her code letters had been changed to PVWQ. "Mione" is an abbreviation of Hermione, the middle name of the Duke's wife, Violet Graham, Duchess of Montrose. By 1900 Horlicks proprietor Sir James Horlick, 1st Baronet had acquired the yacht and reverted her name to Iolanthe. By 1906 a Mrs Florence Calvert of Eton Avenue, Belsize Park, London had acquired her.
By 1907 Sir Charles Assheton-Smith, 1st Baronet, of Vaynol Park in Caernarfonshire, had acquired the yacht. He renamed her after Amaltheia, a nymph in Greek mythology. The Mercantile Navy List records the name as Amalthæa, with an "æ" ligature. Lloyd's Register at first spelt it Amalthea, but by 1909 had changed it to Amalthaea. Assheton-Smith died in 1914, but Amalthæa remained registered in his name until 1918. In 1919, after she had been wrecked, the Mercantile Navy List recorded her owner as a Vivian L Newton of Manchester. He may have acquired her in 1918.
Armed yacht
In the First World War the Admiralty requisitioned the yacht, and armed her with two 3-inch guns. She was commissioned into the Navy as HMY Amalthaea, with the pennant number 065, and entered service on 14 February 1915. She was based at Great Yarmouth. In November 1918 she was transferred to Stornoway to replace an armed yacht called , which was the flagship of the anti-submarine patrol based there. Iolaire was short-handed, as about half of her crew were on leave for Christmas. She reached Kyle of Lochalsh about 16:00 hrs. The two trains reached Kyle of Lochalsh railway station at 18:15 hrs and 19:00 hrs. About 320 men alighted from the two trains. About 27 or 30 embarked on Sheila, and 260 or 290 on Iolaire. Sources differ as to precise numbers, but either way, Iolaire was overloaded. She left Kyle of Lochalsh about 19:30 hrs, and Sheila followed about half an hour later. Iolaire gave a distress signal with her steam whistle, and Commander Mason fired distress flares. Macleod reached the land about 02:25 hrs. It was the greatest peacetime loss of life in United Kingdom waters since the wreck of off Rockall in 1904, and the greatest peacetime loss of life involving a UK-registered ship since the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. Lieutenant Cotter, whose navigational error caused the shipwreck, was among the dead. So was the helmsman who relieved McLean at 01:00 hrs, and who would still have been at the helm when the yacht struck the rocks. Bodies were washed ashore and buried for some time after the shipwreck, but the remains of 56 of the victims were never found.
Less than a fortnight after the disaster, the Admiralty tried to sell the wreck. At that time, the bodies of 80 of the men were still missing. Rear Admiral Boyle told the Admiralty that islanders "resent the wreck being sold while the bodies remain still unrecovered". The Admiralty withdrew the wreck from sale. On 14 February 1919, a benefit concert was held in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, and in the week 10–15 February public collections were made in all the cinemas of Edinburgh and Glasgow. In the course of 1919 the fund raised £26,116. Over the next 18 years it made relief payments to 201 families bereaved by the disaster. The last payments were in January 1938, when the last of the children of those killed reached the age of 18. A smaller granite monument, specific to the victims of Iolaire, was erected at Holm in either 1958 or 1960 (sources differ as to which year it was). The then Provost of Stornoway, Donald Stewart, attended the unveiling. It consists of an obelisk, with an inscription at the base in both Scottish Gaelic and English. It includes Psalm 77, verse 19, in Gaelic. In English in the King James Version the verse reads "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known". There is also a stone pillar marking one of the Beasts of Holm.
The dead are also commemorated on the war monuments in their home parishes on Lewis. In some cases the men killed in the Iolaire disaster are named in a separate list on their parish monument, as at Carloway, Crossbost, and Garrabost.
In March 2018 a cairn and a pictorial plaque were unveiled in Carn Gardens beside Stornoway Town Hall. The cairn consists of 201 stones, each collected from the home parish of the man it represents by school pupils of the Nicolson Institute. In November 2018, 201 trees, representing the men killed in the Iolaire disaster, was planted at Laxdale on Lewis, to form an avenue leading to the Lewis War Memorial tower. The Woodland Trust supplied saplings of hardy native species: downy birch, wych elm, bird cherry, rowan, and hazel.
The centenary of the disaster was commemorated in several ways. On 31 December 2018 a plaque was unveiled on Kyle of Lochalsh railway station, commemorating Iolaires final sailing from the pier, and the disaster that followed. On 1 January 2019 a national commemorative service was held on Lewis. Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay, and the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, laid wreaths at the monument at Holm, and the Duke unveiled a new sculpture commemorating John Macleod. It is a bronze representation of a coil of two ropes: the heaving line with which he swam ashore, and beneath it the hawser that he hauled ashore with the heaving line.
thumb|Sheol nan Iolaire, by Malcolm Maclean, in Stornoway harbour
Artist Malcolm Maclean, of Uig, Lewis, created "Sheòl an Iolaire", a sculpture in Stornoway harbour that is a life-size outline of Iolaire. It uses 280 posts to represent both the frame of the yacht's hull, and the number of men aboard. At night 201 of the posts are illuminated in blue to represent the dead, and 79 are lit in red to represent the survivors.
Ever since the disaster, artists have responded with songs and poems, including in Gaelic, which was the first language of many of the victims. For the centenary, musicians Julie Fowlis and Duncan Chisholm performed a newly composed piece of music, The Arts and Humanities Research Council's "Living Legacies (1914–1918)" project, led by Abertay University and The Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands, has created an online app that expresses the nature and extent of the loss to families and communities. The disaster is also remembered in Lament for the Iolaire, a piobaireachd composed by Stornoway-born Pipe Major Donald MacLeod and published in 1978 which is regularly performed by solo pipers in competitions and recitals. MacLeod was two years old when the sinking occurred.
With effect from 2 September 2019, Iolaires wreck is a protected war grave under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.
See also
- List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll