Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 18 on 8/1/2005.

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Sinclair's snapshot of a nation

James Irvine Robertson on Sir John Sinclair and The Statistical Account of Scotland

Even within the memory of man, the past is foggy. Go back before the creation of modern media of record and historians struggle to interpret the facts that survive, let alone the motivation of those that recorded them. In Scotland we have one great work which illuminates the lives of the entire population a couple of centuries ago. No other nation has a comparable resource.

In spite of its name The Statistical Account of Scotland is not about statistics. Its originator, the incredibly industrious Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, said that he borrowed the term from Germany and his meaning was ‘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.’

From Caithness, in the far north of Scotland, Sinclair was a moderniser who had imported the Cheviot sheep and rebuilt the town of Thurso as the hub of his thriving agricultural estates. He was the first ever Agricultural Minister in the administration of the British Prime Minister William Pitt.

Among other topics he wrote on foreign policy, economics, medicine, and the Scottish dialect, but ‘owing to a lack of humour and unbounded self conceit he viewed all his achievements with a somewhat ludicrous complacency.’

In 1782 came the last great famine in Scotland. Beyond the awful weather, Sinclair knew its cause was largely the result of the primitive farming system that was generally practiced, but change was hampered by the .....

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By James Irvine Robertson

Section : Scottish History

Page number : 20