Colonel Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet, (10 May 1754 – 21 December 1835), was a Scottish politician, military officer, planter 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 acquired ownership of slave plantations in Saint Vincent and 610 slaves. After Parliament abolished slavery in British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Sinclair claimed partial compensation for the loss of his slaves under the Slave Compensation Act 1837, but died before he received his payout.
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.