Martin Martin was probably born in Bealach, near Duntulm Castle, Isle of Skye, into a minor gentry family associated with the MacDonalds of Sleat. (The illustration opposite is of Duntulm Castle as it might have appeared around 1635.) After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1681 he tutored the heirs of the MacDonalds of Sleat and MacLeods of Harris before leaving for London in 1695.

Encouraged by fellow Episcopalians and antiquarian colleagues he undertook ethnographic work on his native Western Isles, setting off for a tour of Lewis in 1696, followed by a trip to St Kilda the following year. 'The Late Voyage to St. Kilda' was published in 1698, followed by his most celebrated work, 'A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland' in 1703.

Despite being promised financial remuneration for his work, the money remained unpaid and Martin returned to Skye to tutor once more. At the age of 41 he enrolled as a trainee physician at Leiden University in the Netherlands and on his return to England he continued to practice medicine, finally graduating at Rheims in 1716. He died on 9 October, 1718.

Martin Martin's accounts of life in the Hebrides, before the advent of the Union, the 'Forty-Five', Highland Clearance, and Victorian Romanticism, are amongst the first printed works to describe the history, culture and traditions of an area where the old structures of society still prevailed.

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