Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Encyclopedia
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
politician, writer on finance and agriculture and the first person to use the word statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, in his vast, pioneering work, Statistical Account of Scotland
Statistical Accounts of Scotland
The Statistical Accounts of Scotland are three series of documentary publications covering life in Scotland in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries....
, in 21 volumes.
Sinclair was the eldest son of George Sinclair of Ulbster
Ulbster
Ulbster is a scattered crofting township, located on the east coast of the former county of Caithness Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland...
, a member of the family of the Earls of Caithness
Earl of Caithness
Earl of Caithness is a title that has been created several times in the Peerage of Scotland, and has a very complex history. Its first grant, in the modern sense as to have been counted in strict lists of peerages, is now generally held to have taken place in favor of Maol Íosa V, Earl of...
, and was born at Thurso Castle, Thurso
Thurso
-Facilities:Offices of the Highland Council are located in the town, as is the main campus of North Highland College, formerly Thurso College. This is one of several partner colleges which constitute the UHI Millennium Institute, and offers several certificate, diploma and degree courses from...
, Caithness
Caithness
Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
. After studying at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
and Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
, he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates
Faculty of Advocates
The Faculty of Advocates is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary...
in Scotland, and called to the English bar, but never practised.
In 1780, he was returned to the British House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
for Caithness constituency, and subsequently represented several English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
constituencies, his parliamentary career extending, with few interruptions, until 1811. Sinclair established at Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
a society for the improvement of British wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
, and was mainly instrumental in the creation of the Board of Agriculture
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and from 1919 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries...
, of which he was the first president.
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
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
issued the "loyalty loan" of eighteen millions for the prosecution of the war.
Family
Sir John Sinclair, who was created a baronetBaronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
in 1780, was twice married. He had two daughters by his first wife. He married, secondly, to Diana, daughter of the first Lord Macdonald
Alexander Macdonald, 1st Baron Macdonald
Alexander Macdonald, 1st Baron Macdonald , was a Scottish peer.Macdonald was the younger son of Sir Alexander Macdonald, 7th Baronet, and his wife Lady Margaret . He was educated at Eton and served with the Grenadier Guards. Macdonald was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Inverness-shire and a...
, by whom he had thirteen children. His eldest son, Sir George Sinclair, 2nd Baronet (1790–1868) was a writer and a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, representing Caithness at intervals from 1811 until 1841. His son, Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, 3rd Baronet, was member for the same constituency from 1869 to 1885. The first Baronet's third son, also John (1797–1875), became Archdeacon of Middlesex; the fifth son, William
William Sinclair (rector)
-Life:William, the fifth son of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet, of Ulbster, Caithness, by his second wife, Diana Macdonald, only daughter of Alexander, lord Macdonald of the Isles, was born on 4 Sept. 1804....
(1804–1878), was Prebendary
Prebendary
A prebendary is a post connected to an Anglican or Catholic cathedral or collegiate church and is a type of canon. Prebendaries have a role in the administration of the cathedral...
of Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
and was the father of William Macdonald Sinclair
William Macdonald Sinclair
William Macdonald Sinclair, DD, FRGS , was an eminent Anglican priest and author in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.He was born into an ecclesiastical family on 3 June 1850, educated at Repton and Balliol and ordained in 1876. His first post was as assistant minister at the Quebec Chapel,...
(b. 1850), who in 1889 became Archdeacon of London
Archdeacon of London
The Archdeacon of London is an archdiaconal post in the Church of England. It covers one of two archdeaconries within the London and Westminster episcopal area of the Diocese of London - that episcopal area's bishop is the Bishop of London.-List:*William de Beaumais, 12th century *William of...
; the fourth daughter, Catherine Sinclair
Catherine Sinclair
Catherine Sinclair was a Scottish novelist and writer of children's literature.-Life:Catherine Sinclair was born in Edinburgh on 17 April 1800, the fourth daughter of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet and Lady Diana Macdonald. Catherine died unmarried...
was an author.
Scientific agriculture
Sinclair's services to scientific agriculture were no less conspicuous. He supervised the compilation of the valuable Statistical Account of ScotlandStatistical Accounts of Scotland
The Statistical Accounts of Scotland are three series of documentary publications covering life in Scotland in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries....
(21 vols., 1791–1799) which was drawn up from the communications of the Ministers
Minister of religion
In Christian churches, a minister is someone who is authorized by a church or religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance to the community...
of the different parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
es'. This is generally 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 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 of a particular kind or with a particular end in mind; the facts were not necessarily, or even typically, numerical.
Sinclair was a great proponent of new agricultural methods, and large tracts of land on his Caithness
Caithness
Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
estate were let out to tenants who kept new breeds of livestock such as Cheviot sheep
Cheviot sheep
The Cheviot is a breed of white faced sheep which gets its name from a range of hills in north Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. It is still common in this area of the United Kingdom, but also in north west Scotland, Wales and the south west of England as well as more rarely in Australia,...
. Unfortunately this meant evicting the sitting tenants and giving them smaller plots of land to work, often in harsh coastal areas such as Badbea
Badbea
Badbea is a former village by the cliff tops of the east coast of Caithness, Scotland, established during the Highland Clearances. Situated around north of Helmsdale, the village was settled in the 18th and 19th centuries by families evicted from their homes when the straths of Langwell, Ousdale...
. Eventually many of the displaced tenants were forced to emigrate.
He was a member of most of the continental
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
agricultural societies, a fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity, operating on a wholly independent and non-party-political basis and providing public benefit throughout Scotland...
, as well as of the Antiquarian Society of London
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
, and president of the Highland Society in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In 1796, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
. Originally a thorough supporter of Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
's war policy, he later on 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
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
and, next year, received the lucrative sinecure office of Commissioner of excise. When the Statistical Society of London (now the Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
) 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
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
, but this was found to lack "facts which can be stated numerically."
Archaeological recording
Sinclair's works sometimes were the first recording of details of archaeological monuments of ScotlandScotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. For example, the first recorded mention of the Catto Long Barrow
Catto Long Barrow
Catto Long Barrow is a prehistoric site in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The site is known locally as Cairn Catto. The extant monument extends for a length of 49 metres.-References:* United Kingdom Ordnance Survey Map 1:50,000 scale, Landranger series...
in Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area.The present day Aberdeenshire council area does not include the City of Aberdeen, now a separate council area, from which its name derives. Together, the modern council area and the city formed historic...
was made by Sinclair in 1795.
External links
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
The National Portrait Gallery has 7 images of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Bt (1754–1835), Agriculturalist