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.
* * * * *
The great monument to Sinclair's indefatigable industry is his
"Statistical Account of Scotland" in twenty-one volumes, one of the
most valuable works on agriculture ever published in any country. It
took seven years and seven months of incessant labour to complete. It
was then that the word "statistics" and "statistical" were first
introduced into the English language by Sinclair. He made use of the
clergy to obtain the information he desired. He sent a circular letter
to each parish minister in Scotland with 160 questions under four
heads: (1) Geography and Natural History. (2) Population. (3)
Production. (4) Miscellaneous subjects.
In the collection of data many difficulties occurred. Some of the
clergy scorned the idea that one man could collect and collate all
this information: others were lazy both in mind and body: and some
were old and infirm. Several parishes were vacant, some too huge to
fully cover, many were without roads, and not a few separated by
tempestuous arms of the sea. To overcome these obstacles he enlisted
the aid of the leaders of the Church of Scotland, of which he was a
member, and the great landowners, and as a last resort he employed
statistical missionaries to supply the missing information. He
generously assigned all the profits of this publication to the
Scottish Fund for the benefit of the sons of the clergy, and obtained
for that Society a Royal grant of £2,000. Among the direct results of
this work was the raising of the stipends of ministers and
schoolmasters--surely a convincing reply to his critics in the
manses--the abolition of what was then called thirlage or the
compulsory grinding of corn at a particular mill. Charles Abbot,
afterwards Lord Colchester, the originator of the census of England,
wrote to Sinclair: "Your success suggested to me the idea," and the
various bureaux of statistics in the United States and other countries
can be directly traced to the influence of his treatise.
In the year 1788 Sinclair founded the Wool Society. For some time he
had been wondering why Shetland wool was so extremely fine. Meeting at
the General Assembly in Edinburgh a Shetland minister, he put the
question to him and obtained much valuable information which he at
once laid before the Highland Society. This led him to form the
British Wool Society. It was inaugurated by a grand sheep-shearing
festival at Newhall's Inn, Queensferry, near Edinburgh, in the year
1791. To Sinclair, therefore, belongs the credit of initiating the
sheep-shearing contests which a few years later developed into Coke's
famous "clippings," and which were the precursors of our present
agricultural shows. The first agricultural show was held by the
Highland and Agricultural Society at Edinburgh in 1822. It was the
Long Hill sheep of the East Border that Sinclair re-christened by the
now famous name of Cheviot. These sheep soon became naturalised all
over the north of Scotland, and in a short time the rent of sheep
firms rose to fabulous prices. Pastures of little value under
coarse-woolled sheep yielded large returns. As an illustration of
the practical value of his improvements it may be mentioned that
Sinclair's estate of Langwell, which he had bought for £8,000,
he afterwards sold for £40,000: while the estate of Reay in
Sutherlandshire was purchased at £300,000. The name Cheviot comes
from the range of rounded or cone-shaped hills growing a superior
pasture on the Scottish and English border.
In the opening lines of this article I spoke of a childish tale about
sheep-shearing. That this legend is not mere fiction may be seen in
the following letter of Arthur Young (see Autobiography of Arthur
Young, page 159): "From Sir J. Sinclair on clothing for sheep which
he sent and desired me to buy. I did so, and the rest of the flock
took them, I suppose, for beasts of prey, and fled in all directions,
till the clothed sheep, jumping hedges and ditches, soon derobed
themselves."
* * * * *
In his third lecture in the "Crown of Wild Olives," Ruskin points out
that all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war. It is
worth while, therefore, to note that the British Board of Agriculture
was established when Britain was engaged in the supreme struggle with
France, which terminated on the field of Waterloo, that the National
Department of Agriculture in the United States was inaugurated in
the midst of the Civil War, and that the Transvaal Department of
Agriculture was commenced ere peace was signed at Vereeniging. In
the year 1793 Sinclair's services in restoring commercial confidence
during the crisis which occurred at the outbreak of the French War
were recognised by Pitt, who sent for him to come to Downing Street,
thanked him on behalf of the Government, and asked him if there was
anything that he desired. Sinclair replied that he sought no favours
for himself, but the most gratifying of all would be the establishment
by Parliament of a great National Corporation to be called "The Board
of Agriculture." In due course the Board was successfully established
with the King as Patron, Sinclair as President, and Arthur Young as
Secretary. The annual Parliamentary grant was £3,000.
In this brief review we have no space to follow the fortune of the
Board to the date of the retirement of its inspiring founder, down to
the time when it returned £42,000 to the Treasury--not knowing how to
spend it--till it finally faded away in the year 1822. Yet the Board
accomplished much imperishable work. It carried out agricultural
surveys, published several volumes of "communications," promoted prize
essays on rural topics, encouraged Elkington, the father of drainage,
Macadam the road-maker, and Meikle, the inventor of the threshing
machine, and arranged lectures by Sir Humphry Davy on agricultural
chemistry, and by Young on tillage.
The north of Scotland at that period owed much to Sinclair. In 1782
he saved the inhabitants from a serious famine by obtaining a
Parliamentary grant of £15,000. In the same year, along with some
other patriots, he secured the repeal of the law which for
thirty-seven years--since the Rebellion of 1745--had forbidden the
use of the kilt.
Sinclair was an enthusiastic tree-planter in a country which was once
wittily described by an American visitor as a "Great Clearing." He
rebuilt Thurso, and founded the herring fisheries at Wick. To ensure
the success of this industry he imported Dutch fishermen to teach the
Caithnessmen the art of catching and curing herrings. He introduced
improved methods of tillage, a regular rotation of crops, and the
cultivation of turnips, clover, and rye-grass. One of his many schemes
was a General Enclosure Bill, his toast at agricultural gatherings
being: "May a Common become an Uncommon Spectacle in Caithness."
In 1786 his attachment to William Pitt was rewarded with a baronetcy.
Sir John's domestic life was singularly happy. On referring to the old
book already mentioned, we read: "He has been twice married to two of
the most beautiful women in the island. His first lady, a Miss
Maitland, died prematurely in the bloom of youth. His present lady is
the daughter of the late Lord Macdonald, and by her he has a son,
George, and other children."
It cannot be doubted that Sir John loved the limelight, possessed an
unbounded self-conceit, lacked the saving sense of humour, and
over-estimated his own achievements. But these vanities were but the
fitful smoke in the blue flame of a burning energy. What a lesson in
industry for the youth of South Africa. Fifty years of ceaseless toil,
author of thirty-nine volumes and 367 pamphlets. This Scottish
agriculturist died in 1835 at the ripe age of eighty-one, and is
buried according to an ancient family rite, in Holyrood Chapel at
Edinburgh--the friend and confidant of three English kings.