Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet

Scottish politician and writer (1754–1835)

Colonel The Right HonourableSir John SinclairPC, MP, FRS, FRSE, FSA
portrait by Henry Raeburn

1st Baronet
In office 1786–1835
Member of the British Parliament for Caithness
In office 1780–1784
Member of the British Parliament for Lostwithiel
In office 1784–1790
Member of the British Parliament for Caithness
In office 1790–1796
Member of the British Parliament for Petersfield
In office 1797–1802
Member of the British Parliament for Caithness
In office 1802–1811

Personal details
Born	10 May 1754 Thurso Castle, Caithness
Died	21 December 1835 New Town, Edinburgh
Spouses	Sarah Maitland Diana MacDonald
Children	15, including Janet George John William Catherine
Alma mater	Edinburgh Glasgow Trinity College, Oxford
Known for	Statistical Accounts of Scotland

Colonel Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet, PC, MP, FRS, FRSE, FSA (10 May 1754 – 21 December 1835), was a Scottish politician, military officer and writer who was one of the first people to use the word "statistics" in the English language in his pioneering work, Statistical Accounts of Scotland, which was published in 21 volumes.

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.

After studying law at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and Trinity College, Oxford, he completed his legal studies at Lincoln's Inn in London in 1774. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland in 1775, and also called to the English bar, although he never practised. He had inherited his father's estates in 1770 and had no financial need to work.

In 1780, he was returned to the House of Commons for the Caithness constituency, and subsequently represented several English constituencies, his parliamentary career extending, with few interruptions, until 1811. Sinclair established at Edinburgh a society for the improvement of British wool, and was mainly instrumental in the creation of the Board of Agriculture, of which he was the first president.

In 1788 he played a leading part in the formation of the African Association, founded to promote knowledge of Africa.

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. He later raised a second fencible unit, the Caithness Highlanders, who would go on to serve in Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

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 Exchequer Bills; and it was on his advice that, in 1797, Pitt issued the "loyalty loan" of 18 millions for the prosecution of the war.

From 1800 until 1816, he lived with his family at 6 Charlotte Square (now known as Bute House) in Edinburgh.

During his life, Sinclair served as trustee for a marriage settlement for Archibald McDonald, his brother-in-law, which included slave plantations in Saint Vincent and 610 slaves. After Parliament abolished slavery in British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Sinclair filed for partial compensation under the Slave Compensation Act 1837, but died before any payment was issued. MacDonald and his wife Jane Campbell received compensation after Sinclair's death.

He died at home, 133 George Street, in the centre of Edinburgh's New Town. 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, 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. 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; 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. He supervised the compilation of the Statistical Account of Scotland (21 vols., 1791–1799) which was drawn up from the communications of the Ministers of the different parishes'. This became known as the "Old Statistical Account." In volume XX (p. xiii) Sinclair explained the choice of name and the purpose of the inquiry:

"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.

Sinclair was a member of most of the continental agricultural societies, a fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, as well as of the Antiquarian Society of London, a member and sometimes president of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and sat as president of the Highland Society of London in 1796. Also, in 1796, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1797.

Originally a supporter of Pitt's war policy, Sinclair later joined the party of "armed neutrality." In 1805 he was appointed by Pitt a commissioner for the construction of roads and bridges in the north of Scotland, in 1810 he was made a member of the privy council and, next year, received the lucrative sinecure office of Commissioner of excise.

When the Statistical Society of London (now the Royal Statistical Society) was founded in 1834, Sinclair at 80 was the oldest original member. In the same year he presented a paper on agriculture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, but this was found to lack "facts which can be stated numerically."

Measuring wellbeing

Around 1790 he wrote about analysing the "quantum of happiness" in the people of Scotland.

Archaeological recording

Sinclair's works sometimes were the first recording of details of archaeological monuments of Scotland. For example, the first recorded mention of the Catto Long Barrow in Aberdeenshire was made by Sinclair in 1795.

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

^ "SINCLAIR, Sir John, 1st Bt. (1754-1835), of Ulbster and Thurso Castle, Caithness".
^ Chisholm 1911, p. 141.
Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
Sinclair, William (1901). "The African Association of 1788". Journal of the Royal African Society. 1 (1): 145–149. JSTOR 714708 – via JSTOR.
Norman, A. V. B. (1999). "The Uniform of the 8Th (Or Rothesay & Caithness) Fencible Regiment". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 77 (311): 172–180. ISSN 0037-9700. 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
Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (23 September 2004). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. ref:odnb/25627. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25627. Retrieved 18 November 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
For more on Captain Archibald Sinclair RN see: O'Byrne, William R. (1849). "Sinclair, Archibald" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray.
Chisholm 1911, pp. 141–142.
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
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sinclair, Sir John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 141–142.

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

"Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen"

For a description of the "Old Statistical Account" (and the "New") see

Statistical Accounts of Scotland.

For more on the history of the term "statistics", see the entry in

Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: S.
Works by or about Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet at Wikisource

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded byJames Stuart for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1780–1784	Succeeded byJames Stuart for Buteshire
Preceded byGeorge Johnstone Viscount Malden	Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel 1784–1790 With: John Thomas Ellis	Succeeded byViscount Valletort Reginald Pole-Carew
Preceded byJames Stuart for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1790–1796	Succeeded byFrederick Stuart for Buteshire
Preceded byHylton Jolliffe William Jolliffe	Member of Parliament for Petersfield 1797–1801 With: William Jolliffe	Succeeded byHimself in the Parliament of the United Kingdom William Jolliffe
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded byHimself in the Parliament of Great Britain William Jolliffe	Member of Parliament for Petersfield 1801–1802 With: William Jolliffe until March 1802 Hylton Jolliffe March–July 1802	Succeeded byWilliam Best Hylton Jolliffe
Preceded byFrederick Stuart for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1802–1806	Succeeded byJames Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie for Buteshire
Preceded byJames Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1807–1811	Succeeded byGeorge Sinclair for Caithness
Baronetage of Great Britain
New creation	Baronet (of Ulbster) 1780–1835	Succeeded byGeorge Sinclair

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