Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso
Encyclopedia
Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso KT
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...

, CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

, PC (22 October 1890 – 15 June 1970), known as Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt between 1912 and 1952, and often as Archie Sinclair, was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 politician and leader of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

.

Background and education

Sinclair was the son of a Scottish father and an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mother. He was the great-great-grandson of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet was a 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...

. In 1912 he succeeded his grandfather Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet
Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, 3rd Baronet was a Scottish landowner and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1869 to 1885....

 as fourth Baronet, of Ulbster. Educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...

, he was commissioned into the Life Guards
Life Guards (British Army)
The Life Guards is the senior regiment of the British Army and with the Blues and Royals, they make up the Household Cavalry.They originated in the four troops of Horse Guards raised by Charles II around the time of his restoration, plus two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards which were raised some...

 in 1910.

Military career

Sinclair served on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - subscription based; accessed 26 July 2011 and rose to the rank of Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

 in the Guards Machine Gun Regiment
Guards Machine Gun Regiment
The Guards Machine Gun Regiment was a regiment of the British Army. It was initially formed in 1915 when machine gun companies were formed in the Guards Division. In April 1917, the four companies were grouped together as a single battalion of the Machine Gun Guards, before being re-designated by...

. He served as second-in-command
Second-in-command
The Second-in-Command is the deputy commander of any British Army or Royal Marines unit, from battalion or regiment downwards. He or she is thus the equivalent of an Executive Officer in the United States Army...

 to Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 when Churchill commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers
Royal Scots Fusiliers
-The Earl of Mar's Regiment of Foot :The regiment was raised in Scotland in 1678 by Stuart loyalist Charles Erskine, de jure 5th Earl of Mar for service against the rebel covenanting forces during the Second Whig Revolt . They were used to keep the peace and put down brigands, mercenaries, and...

 in the Ploegsteert Wood
Ploegsteert Wood
Ploegsteert Wood was a sector of the Western Front in Flanders in World War I, part of the Ypres Salient. After fighting in late 1914 and early 1915, it became a quiet sector where no major action took place...

 sector of the Western Front in 1916, after Churchill had resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty. They formed a lasting friendship that would become a significant political alliance in later decades. From 1919 to 1921 he served as Personal Military Secretary to Churchill when he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, then accompanied him to the Colonial Office
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....

 as Private Secretary.

Political career

In 1922 Sinclair entered the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 as a Liberal Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Caithness and Sutherland
Caithness and Sutherland (UK Parliament constituency)
Caithness and Sutherland was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1997. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

, supporting David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 and defeating the incumbent Liberal supporter of H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...

. His constituency was the largest, in terms of area, in the United Kingdom. He rose through the Liberal ranks as the party shrank in Parliament, becoming Chief Whip
Chief Whip
The Chief Whip is a political office in some legislatures assigned to an elected member whose task is to administer the whipping system that ensures that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.-The Whips Office:...

 by 1930. In 1931 the Liberal Party joined the National Government
UK National Government
In the United Kingdom the term National Government is an abstract concept referring to a coalition of some or all major political parties. In a historical sense it usually refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931...

 of Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

 and with Sinclair appointed Secretary of State for Scotland
Secretary of State for Scotland
The Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was...

. He was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time. The following year he, together with other Liberal ministers, resigned from the government in protest at the Ottawa Conference introducing a series of tariff agreements. Sinclair and the Liberal leader, Sir Herbert Samuel
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Early years:...

, were thus the last Liberal politicians to sit in the Cabinet until 2010.

In the 1935 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1935
The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...

, Samuel lost his seat. Sinclair became the party's leader at the head of only twenty MPs. With the party now clearly marginalised as the third party on the fringe, with few distinct domestic policies, with a parliamentary party that was primarily a collection of individuals elected as much for themselves as for their party, and with the separate Liberal Nationals
National Liberal Party (UK, 1931)
The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968...

 offering competition amongst Liberal inclined voters, Sinclair fought to make the Liberals once more a relevant force in British politics, taking up the issues of opposition to the continental dictatorships and working closely with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 who was a backbencher
Backbencher
In Westminster parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a Member of Parliament or a legislator who does not hold governmental office and is not a Front Bench spokesperson in the Opposition...

 at that time and generally shunned by his Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

. When Churchill formed an all-party coalition government in 1940, Sinclair became Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...

. However he did not sit in the small War Cabinet
War Cabinet
A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....

, though he was invited to attend meetings discussing any political matter. As Secretary for Air, he played a leading role in planning the firebombing and destruction of Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

. He remained a minister until May 1945 when the coalition ended. In the 1945 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...

, he narrowly lost his seat. His margin of defeat is one of the tightest on record - he came third, even though the victor had only 61 votes more than he.

There was speculation that he might return to the Commons and the leadership, as the Conservative victor in his seat had promised to only serve in parliament until the end of war with Japan, a pledge he kept modifying to serving just one more year, every year. Sinclair awaited the imminent by-election, which never materialised. At the 1950 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1950
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...

 Sinclair again stood for his old seat and moved to second place, but in yet another close election, he was 269 votes away from victory. In 1952, the year of his first stroke, he accepted elevation to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

 as Viscount Thurso, of Ulbster in the County of Caithness. He was expected to take up the leadership of the Liberal group in the House of Lords, but a much more serious stroke in 1959 left him largely bedridden and in a state of precarious health until his death in 1970.

Family

Sinclair married Marigold, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Stewart Forbes, in 1918. They had four children: the Hon. Catherine (born 1919), the Hon. Elizabeth (born 1921), Robin (1922–1995), and the Hon. Angus (born 1925). Sinclair was one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, owning an estate of about 100,000 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s (400 km²) in Caithness
Caithness
Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...

. He was handsome and charming and regarded as a daredevil, but in private life was rather shy, reserved and antisocial, with a slight speech impediment.

In the 1990s, his grandson, John Thurso
John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso
John Archibald Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso , known as John Thurso, is a Scottish businessman and Liberal Democrat politician...

, entered politics and has sat since 2001 as the Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...

 MP for his grandfather's seat, now called Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (UK Parliament constituency)
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.-Boundaries:...

. Sinclair's granddaughter, Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
Veronica Linklater
Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone , is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords. Her career indicates her interests in children’s welfare, education and special needs, and prison reform...

 (daughter of the Hon. Elizabeth Sinclair), is also a Liberal Democrat politician.

External links


Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso KT
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...

, CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

, PC (22 October 1890 – 15 June 1970), known as Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt between 1912 and 1952, and often as Archie Sinclair, was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 politician and leader of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

.

Background and education

Sinclair was the son of a Scottish father and an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mother. He was the great-great-grandson of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet was a 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...

. In 1912 he succeeded his grandfather Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet
Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, 3rd Baronet was a Scottish landowner and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1869 to 1885....

 as fourth Baronet, of Ulbster. Educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...

, he was commissioned into the Life Guards
Life Guards (British Army)
The Life Guards is the senior regiment of the British Army and with the Blues and Royals, they make up the Household Cavalry.They originated in the four troops of Horse Guards raised by Charles II around the time of his restoration, plus two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards which were raised some...

 in 1910.

Military career

Sinclair served on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - subscription based; accessed 26 July 2011 and rose to the rank of Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

 in the Guards Machine Gun Regiment
Guards Machine Gun Regiment
The Guards Machine Gun Regiment was a regiment of the British Army. It was initially formed in 1915 when machine gun companies were formed in the Guards Division. In April 1917, the four companies were grouped together as a single battalion of the Machine Gun Guards, before being re-designated by...

. He served as second-in-command
Second-in-command
The Second-in-Command is the deputy commander of any British Army or Royal Marines unit, from battalion or regiment downwards. He or she is thus the equivalent of an Executive Officer in the United States Army...

 to Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 when Churchill commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers
Royal Scots Fusiliers
-The Earl of Mar's Regiment of Foot :The regiment was raised in Scotland in 1678 by Stuart loyalist Charles Erskine, de jure 5th Earl of Mar for service against the rebel covenanting forces during the Second Whig Revolt . They were used to keep the peace and put down brigands, mercenaries, and...

 in the Ploegsteert Wood
Ploegsteert Wood
Ploegsteert Wood was a sector of the Western Front in Flanders in World War I, part of the Ypres Salient. After fighting in late 1914 and early 1915, it became a quiet sector where no major action took place...

 sector of the Western Front in 1916, after Churchill had resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty. They formed a lasting friendship that would become a significant political alliance in later decades. From 1919 to 1921 he served as Personal Military Secretary to Churchill when he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, then accompanied him to the Colonial Office
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....

 as Private Secretary.

Political career

In 1922 Sinclair entered the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 as a Liberal Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Caithness and Sutherland
Caithness and Sutherland (UK Parliament constituency)
Caithness and Sutherland was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1997. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

, supporting David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 and defeating the incumbent Liberal supporter of H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...

. His constituency was the largest, in terms of area, in the United Kingdom. He rose through the Liberal ranks as the party shrank in Parliament, becoming Chief Whip
Chief Whip
The Chief Whip is a political office in some legislatures assigned to an elected member whose task is to administer the whipping system that ensures that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.-The Whips Office:...

 by 1930. In 1931 the Liberal Party joined the National Government
UK National Government
In the United Kingdom the term National Government is an abstract concept referring to a coalition of some or all major political parties. In a historical sense it usually refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931...

 of Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

 and with Sinclair appointed Secretary of State for Scotland
Secretary of State for Scotland
The Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was...

. He was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time. The following year he, together with other Liberal ministers, resigned from the government in protest at the Ottawa Conference introducing a series of tariff agreements. Sinclair and the Liberal leader, Sir Herbert Samuel
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Early years:...

, were thus the last Liberal politicians to sit in the Cabinet until 2010.

In the 1935 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1935
The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...

, Samuel lost his seat. Sinclair became the party's leader at the head of only twenty MPs. With the party now clearly marginalised as the third party on the fringe, with few distinct domestic policies, with a parliamentary party that was primarily a collection of individuals elected as much for themselves as for their party, and with the separate Liberal Nationals
National Liberal Party (UK, 1931)
The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968...

 offering competition amongst Liberal inclined voters, Sinclair fought to make the Liberals once more a relevant force in British politics, taking up the issues of opposition to the continental dictatorships and working closely with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 who was a backbencher
Backbencher
In Westminster parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a Member of Parliament or a legislator who does not hold governmental office and is not a Front Bench spokesperson in the Opposition...

 at that time and generally shunned by his Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

. When Churchill formed an all-party coalition government in 1940, Sinclair became Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...

. However he did not sit in the small War Cabinet
War Cabinet
A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....

, though he was invited to attend meetings discussing any political matter. As Secretary for Air, he played a leading role in planning the firebombing and destruction of Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

. He remained a minister until May 1945 when the coalition ended. In the 1945 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...

, he narrowly lost his seat. His margin of defeat is one of the tightest on record - he came third, even though the victor had only 61 votes more than he.

There was speculation that he might return to the Commons and the leadership, as the Conservative victor in his seat had promised to only serve in parliament until the end of war with Japan, a pledge he kept modifying to serving just one more year, every year. Sinclair awaited the imminent by-election, which never materialised. At the 1950 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1950
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...

 Sinclair again stood for his old seat and moved to second place, but in yet another close election, he was 269 votes away from victory. In 1952, the year of his first stroke, he accepted elevation to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

 as Viscount Thurso, of Ulbster in the County of Caithness. He was expected to take up the leadership of the Liberal group in the House of Lords, but a much more serious stroke in 1959 left him largely bedridden and in a state of precarious health until his death in 1970.

Family

Sinclair married Marigold, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Stewart Forbes, in 1918. They had four children: the Hon. Catherine (born 1919), the Hon. Elizabeth (born 1921), Robin (1922–1995), and the Hon. Angus (born 1925). Sinclair was one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, owning an estate of about 100,000 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s (400 km²) in Caithness
Caithness
Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...

. He was handsome and charming and regarded as a daredevil, but in private life was rather shy, reserved and antisocial, with a slight speech impediment.

In the 1990s, his grandson, John Thurso
John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso
John Archibald Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso , known as John Thurso, is a Scottish businessman and Liberal Democrat politician...

, entered politics and has sat since 2001 as the Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...

 MP for his grandfather's seat, now called Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (UK Parliament constituency)
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.-Boundaries:...

. Sinclair's granddaughter, Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
Veronica Linklater
Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone , is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords. Her career indicates her interests in children’s welfare, education and special needs, and prison reform...

 (daughter of the Hon. Elizabeth Sinclair), is also a Liberal Democrat politician.

External links


Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso KT
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...

, CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

, PC (22 October 1890 – 15 June 1970), known as Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt between 1912 and 1952, and often as Archie Sinclair, was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 politician and leader of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

.

Background and education

Sinclair was the son of a Scottish father and an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mother. He was the great-great-grandson of Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet was a 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...

. In 1912 he succeeded his grandfather Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet
Sir John Sinclair, 3rd Baronet
Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, 3rd Baronet was a Scottish landowner and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1869 to 1885....

 as fourth Baronet, of Ulbster. Educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...

, he was commissioned into the Life Guards
Life Guards (British Army)
The Life Guards is the senior regiment of the British Army and with the Blues and Royals, they make up the Household Cavalry.They originated in the four troops of Horse Guards raised by Charles II around the time of his restoration, plus two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards which were raised some...

 in 1910.

Military career

Sinclair served on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - subscription based; accessed 26 July 2011 and rose to the rank of Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

 in the Guards Machine Gun Regiment
Guards Machine Gun Regiment
The Guards Machine Gun Regiment was a regiment of the British Army. It was initially formed in 1915 when machine gun companies were formed in the Guards Division. In April 1917, the four companies were grouped together as a single battalion of the Machine Gun Guards, before being re-designated by...

. He served as second-in-command
Second-in-command
The Second-in-Command is the deputy commander of any British Army or Royal Marines unit, from battalion or regiment downwards. He or she is thus the equivalent of an Executive Officer in the United States Army...

 to Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 when Churchill commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers
Royal Scots Fusiliers
-The Earl of Mar's Regiment of Foot :The regiment was raised in Scotland in 1678 by Stuart loyalist Charles Erskine, de jure 5th Earl of Mar for service against the rebel covenanting forces during the Second Whig Revolt . They were used to keep the peace and put down brigands, mercenaries, and...

 in the Ploegsteert Wood
Ploegsteert Wood
Ploegsteert Wood was a sector of the Western Front in Flanders in World War I, part of the Ypres Salient. After fighting in late 1914 and early 1915, it became a quiet sector where no major action took place...

 sector of the Western Front in 1916, after Churchill had resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty. They formed a lasting friendship that would become a significant political alliance in later decades. From 1919 to 1921 he served as Personal Military Secretary to Churchill when he returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, then accompanied him to the Colonial Office
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....

 as Private Secretary.

Political career

In 1922 Sinclair entered the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 as a Liberal Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Caithness and Sutherland
Caithness and Sutherland (UK Parliament constituency)
Caithness and Sutherland was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1997. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

, supporting David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 and defeating the incumbent Liberal supporter of H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...

. His constituency was the largest, in terms of area, in the United Kingdom. He rose through the Liberal ranks as the party shrank in Parliament, becoming Chief Whip
Chief Whip
The Chief Whip is a political office in some legislatures assigned to an elected member whose task is to administer the whipping system that ensures that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.-The Whips Office:...

 by 1930. In 1931 the Liberal Party joined the National Government
UK National Government
In the United Kingdom the term National Government is an abstract concept referring to a coalition of some or all major political parties. In a historical sense it usually refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931...

 of Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

 and with Sinclair appointed Secretary of State for Scotland
Secretary of State for Scotland
The Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was...

. He was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time. The following year he, together with other Liberal ministers, resigned from the government in protest at the Ottawa Conference introducing a series of tariff agreements. Sinclair and the Liberal leader, Sir Herbert Samuel
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Early years:...

, were thus the last Liberal politicians to sit in the Cabinet until 2010.

In the 1935 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1935
The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...

, Samuel lost his seat. Sinclair became the party's leader at the head of only twenty MPs. With the party now clearly marginalised as the third party on the fringe, with few distinct domestic policies, with a parliamentary party that was primarily a collection of individuals elected as much for themselves as for their party, and with the separate Liberal Nationals
National Liberal Party (UK, 1931)
The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968...

 offering competition amongst Liberal inclined voters, Sinclair fought to make the Liberals once more a relevant force in British politics, taking up the issues of opposition to the continental dictatorships and working closely with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 who was a backbencher
Backbencher
In Westminster parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a Member of Parliament or a legislator who does not hold governmental office and is not a Front Bench spokesperson in the Opposition...

 at that time and generally shunned by his Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

. When Churchill formed an all-party coalition government in 1940, Sinclair became Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...

. However he did not sit in the small War Cabinet
War Cabinet
A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....

, though he was invited to attend meetings discussing any political matter. As Secretary for Air, he played a leading role in planning the firebombing and destruction of Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

. He remained a minister until May 1945 when the coalition ended. In the 1945 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...

, he narrowly lost his seat. His margin of defeat is one of the tightest on record - he came third, even though the victor had only 61 votes more than he.

There was speculation that he might return to the Commons and the leadership, as the Conservative victor in his seat had promised to only serve in parliament until the end of war with Japan, a pledge he kept modifying to serving just one more year, every year. Sinclair awaited the imminent by-election, which never materialised. At the 1950 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1950
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...

 Sinclair again stood for his old seat and moved to second place, but in yet another close election, he was 269 votes away from victory. In 1952, the year of his first stroke, he accepted elevation to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

 as Viscount Thurso, of Ulbster in the County of Caithness. He was expected to take up the leadership of the Liberal group in the House of Lords, but a much more serious stroke in 1959 left him largely bedridden and in a state of precarious health until his death in 1970.

Family

Sinclair married Marigold, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Stewart Forbes, in 1918. They had four children: the Hon. Catherine (born 1919), the Hon. Elizabeth (born 1921), Robin (1922–1995), and the Hon. Angus (born 1925). Sinclair was one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, owning an estate of about 100,000 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s (400 km²) in Caithness
Caithness
Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...

. He was handsome and charming and regarded as a daredevil, but in private life was rather shy, reserved and antisocial, with a slight speech impediment.

In the 1990s, his grandson, John Thurso
John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso
John Archibald Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso , known as John Thurso, is a Scottish businessman and Liberal Democrat politician...

, entered politics and has sat since 2001 as the Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...

 MP for his grandfather's seat, now called Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (UK Parliament constituency)
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.-Boundaries:...

. Sinclair's granddaughter, Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
Veronica Linklater
Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone , is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords. Her career indicates her interests in children’s welfare, education and special needs, and prison reform...

 (daughter of the Hon. Elizabeth Sinclair), is also a Liberal Democrat politician.

External links

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