JOHN SINCLAIR: FOUNDER OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE
One of the earliest recollections of the writer's childhood as he fished for trout in the Swiney Burn in the far North of Scotland, was the tale of a certain wonderful man that was wont to tie little shoes on the feet of his sheep in order to keep them warm while walking through the snow. But many a trout had to be caught, and many a ripple of the shining river had to pass beneath the Thurso Bridge ere he learned the name of the strange person who struck his childish fancy as he looked up from his quivering line into the wistful eyes of a Cheviot ewe on the lonely, wine-red, moor.
Sir John Sinclair, the founder of the British Board of Agriculture, was born in Thurso Castle in the county of Caithness, on May 10th, 1754. His father, George Sinclair, the Laird of Ulbster, was a descendant of the Earls of Caithness and Orkney; while his mother, Lady Janet Sutherland of Dunrobin, was the sister of the sixteenth Earl of that name. As a child he was carefully and wisely trained by his parents. From his father, a man of literary tastes and deeply religious character, he inherited a love of books; and from his gentle mother, he learned the lesson that life is not an empty dream; and her lad was soon to be known as "the most indefatigable man in Europe."
John was educated at the Royal School of Edinburgh, and at the University of the same city which he entered at the early age of thirteen. He also studied at Glasgow, and at Trinity College, Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1782. His father died suddenly when John was sixteen, and he found himself heir to Estates comprising some 100,000 acres, mainly bleak and barren moor. He at once began to improve his property.
Scottish agriculture was then in a most backward state. The fields were unenclosed, the lands were undrained. The small farmers of Caithness were so poor that they could hardly afford to keep a horse, or even a Shetland pony. The burdens were chiefly borne by women. Indeed, according to Smiles, if a cottar lost a horse, it was not unusual for him to marry a wife as the cheapest substitute.
The country was without roads or bridges. Drovers taking their cattle to the South had to swim rivers alongside their beasts. The chief track leading into the country lay along the high shelf of a mountain called Ben Cheilt; the path being several hundred feet above the storm-tossed sea, which thundered on the rocks below.
Imagine the loud laughter of the elders of this community when they heard a rumour that young Sinclair proposed to build in a single day a road over this hitherto impassable hill. But John surveyed the road himself, and ordered up the Statute labour. At that time the law decreed that all capable inhabitants of the agricultural class should work on the roads for six days in every year. And so, early one summer morning, he assembled the neighbouring farmers and their servants—a total of 1,260. Each party, on arrival, was assigned a certain piece of the path where they found tools and provisions awaiting them. At sunset of the same evening the youth drove his carriage and pair over six miles of mountain road which the night before had been a dangerous sheep-track. Tidings of this exploit by a stripling of eighteen spread far and wide, and spurred the sleeping spirit of the North.
At the age of twenty-six, John Sinclair was elected member of Parliament for the county of Caithness, and remained in the House of Commons for upwards of thirty years.