Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
John Sinclair British Parliament for Caithness | |
---|---|
In office 1802–1811[1] | |
Personal details | |
Born | 10 May 1754 Thurso Castle, Caithness |
Died | 21 December 1835 New Town, Edinburgh |
Spouses |
|
Children | 15, including |
Alma mater | |
Known for | Statistical Accounts of Scotland |
Life
Sinclair was the eldest son of George Sinclair of Ulbster (d. 1770), a member of the family of the earls of Caithness, and his wife Lady Janet Sutherland. He was born at Thurso Castle, Caithness. He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh.[2]
After studying law at the universities of
In 1780, he was returned to the
In 1788 he played a leading part in the formation of the African Association, founded to promote knowledge of Africa.[3]
In 1794, Sinclair raised the Rothesay and Caithness Fencibles, the first of the Highland Fencible Corps which could be called to serve in the entirety of Great Britain and not merely Scotland.[4] He later raised a second fencible unit, the Caithness Highlanders, who would go on to serve in Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.[citation needed]
His reputation as a financier and economist had been established by the publication, in 1784, of his History of the Public Revenue of the British Empire; in 1793 widespread ruin was prevented by the adoption of his plan for the issue of
From 1800 until 1816, he lived with his family at 6 Charlotte Square (now known as Bute House) in Edinburgh.[5]
During his life, Sinclair served as trustee for a marriage settlement for Archibald McDonald, his brother-in-law, which included
He died at home, 133 George Street, in the centre of Edinburgh's New Town.[7] He is buried in the Royal Chapel at Holyrood Abbey. His stone sarcophagus lies towards the north-east.
Family
Sinclair, who was made a baronet in 1786,[8] married twice. On 26 March 1776 he married his first wife Sarah Maitland, the only child and heir of Alexander Maitland of Stoke Newington. Together they had two daughters, Hannah and Janet, who became a religious writer.[9] His first wife died in 1785.
In 1788, Sinclair married Diana MacDonald, daughter of Alexander Macdonald, 1st Baron Macdonald, and together they had 13 children. His eldest son, Sir George Sinclair, 2nd Baronet (1790–1868), was a writer and a Member of Parliament, representing Caithness at intervals from 1811 until 1841, and married Lady Catherine Camilla Tollemache. His son, Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, 3rd Baronet, was a member for the same constituency from 1869 to 1885. The first baronet's third son, also named John (1797–1875), became Archdeacon of Middlesex; the fourth son was Captain Archibald Sinclair RN;[10] the fifth son, William (1804–1878), was Prebendary of Chichester and was the father of William MacDonald Sinclair (1850–1917), who in 1889 became Archdeacon of London; the fourth daughter, Catherine Sinclair, was an author.
Scientific agriculture
Sinclair's services to scientific agriculture were conspicuous.
"Many people were at first surprised at my using the words "statistical" and "statistics", as it was supposed that some term in our own language might have expressed the same meaning. But in the course of a very extensive tour through the northern parts of Europe, which I happened to take in 1786, I found that in Germany they were engaged in a species of political enquiry to which they had given the name "statistics," and though I apply a different meaning to that word—for by "statistical" is meant in Germany an inquiry for the purposes of ascertaining the political strength of a country or questions respecting matters of state—whereas the idea I annex to the term is an inquiry into the state of a country, for the purpose of ascertaining the quantum of happiness enjoyed by its inhabitants, and the means of its future improvement; but as I thought that a new word might attract more public attention, I resolved on adopting it, and I hope it is now completely naturalised and incorporated with our language."
For Sinclair, statistics involved collecting facts, but these were not necessarily, or even typically, numerical.
Sinclair was a proponent of new agricultural methods, and large tracts of land on his Caithness estate were let out to tenants who kept new breeds of livestock such as Cheviot sheep. This plan meant evicting the sitting tenants and giving them smaller plots of land to work, often in harsh coastal areas such as Badbea. Eventually many of the displaced tenants emigrated.[12]
Sinclair was a member of most of the
Originally a supporter of
When the Statistical Society of London (now the
Measuring wellbeing
Around 1790 he wrote about analysing the "quantum of happiness" in the people of Scotland.[14]
Archaeological recording
Sinclair's works sometimes were the first recording of details of
Writings
He was the author of the books Statistical Accounts of Scotland; History of the Public Revenue of the British Empire 1784; The Code of Health and Longevity 1807; Code of Agriculture 1819. After a tour of agricultural inquiry in Flanders in 1815 he wrote a pamphlet: "Hints Regarding the Agriculture State of the Netherlands, Compared with that of Great Britain", Mc Millan, Londen, 1815.
References
- ^ a b c d e f "SINCLAIR, Sir John, 1st Bt. (1754-1835), of Ulbster and Thurso Castle, Caithness".
- ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
- JSTOR 714708– via JSTOR.
- JSTOR 44230277.
- ^ "Bute House Guide Book" (PDF). Office of the First Minister of Scotland. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
- ^ "Details of Claim | Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
- ^ "(209) - Scottish Post Office Directories > Towns > Edinburgh > 1805-1834 - Post Office annual directory > 1832-1833 - Scottish Directories - National Library of Scotland". nls.uk.
- ^ Calder (1887), p. 244
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25627. Retrieved 18 November 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray.
- ^ R. Mitchison, 1962.
- ^ Anon. "Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster's 'Account of Improvements', map of Thurso". Am Baile: Highland history and culture. Am Baile/The Gaelic Village. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter S" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
- ^ "The Wellbeing of Nations: An interview with author Paul Allin - Statistics Views". Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
- ^ C. Michael Hogan, 2008.
Sources
- Calder, John Traill (1887), Sketch of the Civil and Traditional History of Caithness, Rae
- John Sinclair. The Correspondence of the Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart. With Reminiscences of the Most Distinguished Characters Who Have Appeared in Great Britain, and in Foreign Countries, During the Last Fifty Years. 2 Vols. London: H. Colburn & R. Bentley, 1831. googlebbooks.com Accessed 12 November 2007
- Sinclair, Rev. John (Sir John's Sinclair's son). Memoirs of the Life and Works of the Late Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart. 2 Vols, Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1837. googlebooks.com Accessed 12 November 2007
- C. Michael Hogan. 2008 Catto Long Barrow fieldnotes, The Modern Antiquarian
- R. Mitchison, Agricultural Sir John: The life of Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, London: Geoffrey Bles (1962).
- Rosalind Mitchison, "Sinclair, Sir John, first baronet (1754–1835)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 16 July 2005.
- "Sinclair, John", pp. 70–72 in Leading Personalities in Statistical Sciences from the Seventeenth Century to the Present, (ed. N. L. Johnson and S. Kotz) 1997. New York: Wiley. Originally published in Encyclopedia of Statistical Science.
- R. L. Plackett (1986) The Old Statistical Account, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, (149), 247–251.
- Urban, Sylvanus. "Obituary" The Gentleman's Magazine. London: 1836. (pp. 431–433) googlebooks.com Accessed 12 November 2007
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sinclair, Sir John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 141–142. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Royal Society citation
- Portraits of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Bt at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir John Sinclair
For a biography published in 1856 see
For a description of the "Old Statistical Account" (and the "New") see
For more on the history of the term "statistics", see the entry in