Qualities of different Grasses and other Plants used as the Food of the more valuable Domestic Animals,’ London, 1816. The basis of these experiments was formed not by the actual feeding of cattle, but by the chemical process (recommended by Sir Humphry Davy) of extracting by the action of hot water the soluble portions of the respective grasses, as these soluble constituents formed the bulk of the feeding material. This, of course, was not an absolute test, but as a comparative guide it had, and has since had, a material value. After having for seventeen years superintended the gardens at Woburn Abbey, Sinclair left the service of the duke, and entered into partnership about 1824 with Messrs. Cormack & Son, nurserymen and seedsmen, New Cross. He became on 26 March 1824 a fellow of the Linnean Society, and he was also a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society and of other botanical organisations. He remained a partner of the firm of seedsmen for some nine or ten years, till his death in the forty-eighth year of his age, at New Cross Nursery, Deptford, on 13 March 1834.
The folio (1816) edition of the ‘Hortus’ was dedicated to John, duke of Bedford, and was illustrated by dried specimens of the respective grasses. A second and cheaper octavo edition, published in 1824, was dedicated to Thomas William Coke (afterwards Earl of Leicester of Holkham) [q. v.], and in it the dried specimens were replaced by plates. Other editions appeared in 1825, 1826, and more recently in 1869, in a somewhat altered form, and with a preface giving some particulars about the book and its author. The work was also translated into German by Frederick Schmidt (Stuttgart, 1826). Sinclair edited the ‘Hortus Cantabrigiensis’ of James Donn, the ‘Essay on Weeds’ of Benjamin Holdich (1825), and a ‘Treatise on Useful and Ornamental Planting,’ published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
[Obituary notice in Gardener's Mag. 1834, 192; Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, 1843, xiii. 442; Britten and Boulger's English Botanists; prefaces and appendices to Sinclair's works.]
SINCLAIR, Sir GEORGE (1790–1868), author, eldest son of Sir John Sinclair (1754–1835) [q. v.] of Ulbster, and Diana, only daughter of Alexander Macdonald, first lord Macdonald, was born in Edinburgh on 28 Aug. 1790. His brothers John [q. v.] and William [q. v.] and sister Catherine [q. v.] are noticed separately. He entered Harrow, under Dr. Drury, at the age of ten, having for fellow scholars Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel. Byron described Sinclair as ‘the prodigy of our school-days. He made exercises for half the school (literally), verses at will, and themes without it. He was a friend of mine, and in the same remove.’ At the age of sixteen Sinclair quitted Harrow and went to Göttingen. Arrested as a spy, he was brought before Napoleon, who examined him and ordered his release. In 1826 Sinclair issued a privately printed ‘Narrative’ of the interview (Edinburgh, 1826, 8vo). He returned to England, and in 1811 succeeded his father in the whig interest as M.P. for the county of Caithness, which he represented at intervals for many years. On the invitation of Spencer Perceval [q. v.] he moved the reply to the address from the throne during his first session, and soon achieved success as a speaker. He was re-elected to parliament in 1818. In the House of Commons Sinclair formed a close friendship with Joseph Hume and Sir Francis Burdett. He strenuously advocated catholic emancipation and the emancipation of the West India slaves, and he severely criticised the pension list. While a member of parliament Sinclair found time to attend the Edinburgh lectures of Dr. Hope on chemistry, of Dr. Knox and Dr. Monro on anatomy, and also a course on botany. He took a great interest in the misfortunes of Charles X, and had numerous interviews with the royal exile when resident in Holyrood. One of these he described in a racy pamphlet, ‘Comme Charles X,’ 1848.
In 1831 Sinclair was again returned for Caithness-shire to the House of Commons, and sat continuously till 1841, being re-elected in 1833, 1835, and 1837. He supported the Reform Bill of 1832, and in the same year he attracted public attention by refusing William IV's invitation to dine with him on a Sunday. In 1835 he joined the new ‘constitutional’ party of Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, who had seceded in 1834 from the government of Earl Grey. On 21 Dec. 1835 he succeeded his father as second baronet. He took an active part, as chairman of Sir Francis Burdett's committee, in the famous Westminster election of 1837. At this time a writer in ‘Blackwood’ characterised him as ‘one of the manliest and most uncompromising of the constitutional members of the House of Commons; a friend to the church, the king, and the people.’ He retired from parliament in 1841.
Sinclair was a faithful supporter of the anti-patronage society with reference to the church of Scotland. He afterwards joined the free church. His last years were passed in seclusion at Thurso Castle or Torquay. He spent the winter of 1867 at Cannes, and,
