Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet

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Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet (May 10, 1754 – December 21, 1835) Scottish politician, writer on finance and agriculture and the first person to use the word statistics in the English language, in his vast, pioneering work, Statistical Account of Scotland, in 21 volumes.

Sinclair was the eldest son of George Sinclair of Ulbster, a member of the family of the Earls of Caithness, and was born at Thurso Castle, Thurso, Caithness. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Oxford, he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, and called to the English bar, but never practised.

In 1780, he was returned to the British House of Commons for 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.

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 eighteen millions for the prosecution of the war.

Sinclair's services to scientific agriculture were no less conspicuous. He supervised the compilation of the valuable Statistical Account of Scotland (21 vols., 1791-1799) which was drawn up from the communications of the Ministers of the different parishes'. This is generally known as the "Old Statistical Account." In volume XX (p. xiii) Sinclair explained the choice of name and also 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 naturalized 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.

He 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, and president of the Highland Society in London. Originally a thorough supporter of Pitt'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 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."

Sir John Sinclair, who was created a baronet in 1780, was twice married, first to a daughter of Alexander Maitland, by whom he had two daughters, and secondly to Diana, daughter of the first Lord Macdonald, by whom he had thirteen children. His eldest son, George Sinclair (1790-1868) was a writer and a member of parliament, representing Caithness at intervals from 1811 till 1841. His son, Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, the 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 (1804-1878), was Prebendary of Chichester and was the father of William Macdonald Sinclair (b. 1850), who in 1889 became Archdeacon of London; the fourth daughter, Catherine (1800-1864), at one time enjoyed some vogue as an author.

See Correspondence of the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair, Bart., with Reminiscences of Distinguished Characters (2 vols., London, 1831); and Memoirs of the Life and Works of the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1837).

[edit] References

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, A, (149), 247–251.
This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

[edit] External links

Royal Society citation

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.

The National Portrait Gallery has 7 images of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Bt (1754–1835), Agriculturalist

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Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by: James Stuart for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1780–1784	Succeeded by: James Stuart for Buteshire
Preceded by: '	Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel 1784–1790	Succeeded by: '
Preceded by: James Stuart for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1790–1796	Succeeded by: Frederick Stuart for Buteshire
Preceded by: '	Member of Parliament for Petersfield 1797–1801	Succeeded by: Himself in the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by: Himself in the Parliament of Great Britain	Member of Parliament for Petersfield 1801–1802	Succeeded by: '
Preceded by: Frederick Stuart for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1802–1806	Succeeded by: James Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie for Buteshire
Preceded by: James Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie for Buteshire	Member of Parliament for Caithness 1807–1811	Succeeded by: George Sinclair for Caithness
Baronetage of Great Britain
Preceded by: New Creation	Baronet, of Ulbster 1780–1835	Succeeded by: George Sinclair