George MacLeod: Founder of the Iona Community

A war hero and successful young minister in Edinburgh during the 1920s, George MacLeod shocked his many admirers by taking a post in Govan, a poor and depressed area of Glasgow, and moving inexorably towards socialism and pacifism during the depression years. In these dark times he embarked on the imaginative venture of rebuilding the ancient abbey on the Isle of Iona, taking with him unemployed craftsmen from the shipyards of the Clyde and trainee ministers, whom he persuaded to work as labourers. Out of this was born the often controversial Iona Community.