The Famous Faces of Clan Sinclair

Move over Christopher Columbus, it’s possible that a Sinclair was the first European to reach North America! In the 1300s - a century before his more famous Italian counterpart - Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and Lord of Roslin, is alleged to have set sail for Greenland and the Faroe Islands, eventually reaching as far as modern Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. If you visit Guysborough in Nova Scotia today, you will find a stone marking the site where his expedition is alleged to have landed. Whilst many historians have cast doubt on the accuracy of these claims and the 16th century documents that allegedly prove his travels, is nice to think of Henry as a forerunner of the Sinclairs who would eventually settle in the USA and Canada in the following centuries.

Henry’s grandson, William St Clair is next in our list of notable Sinclairs. William de St Clair was famously killed alongside Sir James Douglas taking the heart of Robert the Bruce to the Holy Land. The son of Henry St Clair, 7th Baron of Roslin, he was one of a group of knights selected to fulfil the King’s dying wish to be taken on crusade. The party only got as far as Grenada in Southern Spain, where they encountered Saracens and both Douglas and St Clair were killed. The remains of the fallen knights were returned to Scotland along with Robert’s heart, which is now buried in Melrose Abbey.

Turning to the more recent generations of the main Scottish branches of the Clan, we will also find notable members. Helen St Clair-Erskine, Countess of Rosslyn, the wife of the 7th Earl, is the Arts Editor of Tatler magazine, and the founder of the London Original Print Fair. Her daughter, Lady Alice St Clair-Erskine, is an actress, whose roles include playing Kate Middleton in Hallmark’s William & Katherine: A Royal Romance – the latest royal link in the family’s long history!

Whilst Henry Sinclair may or may not have crossed the Atlantic in the 14^th century, today there are several Sinclairs to be found in North America. Better known by her married name Margaret Trudeau, Margaret Sinclair was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the daughter of Scottish-born government minister Jimmy Sinclair. As the former wife of Canada’s 15^th Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and the mother of Canada’s current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, she is the first woman in Canadian history to have been both wife and mother to a Prime Minister. She has used her position to advocate for causes including building sustainable water supplies in developing countries and raising awareness of mental health issues.

Christine Sinclair is a Canadian footballer, widely regarded as Canada’s greatest football player of all time and the world’s all-time leading international goal scorer. Her 190 goals for Canada place her more than 70 goals ahead of the leading international scorer in the men’s game. She captains of the national team and US club Portland Thorns FC, is an Olympic gold medallist, two-time Olympic bronze medallist, CONCACAF champion, and 14 time winner of the Canada Soccer player of the year award. Sinclair is only the second footballer ever to score at 5 world cups – a truly impressive set of achievements!

One for our French readers! Anne Sinclair is a New York-born French TV and radio interviewer and journalist, who for more than 13 years hosted popular political shows for French television network TF1. She is also the sole heir of French art dealer Paul Rosenberg, and in 2007 donated a painting of her mother and grandmother that had been painted by Picasso to the Picasso Museum in Paris. She has been married twice – her second husband was the former director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Back to the UK now, and to Donald Sinclair. Donald was a manager of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, which he helped to run after a career in the Royal Navy. During WW2, he survived the sinking of two of his ships. Whilst this itself is quite something, what Donald is best known for is being the inspiration for the character of Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese in the sitcom Fawlty Towers. This is apparently due to his stuffy, snobbish, and eccentric treatment of his guests – when Cleese stayed at the hotel, Sinclair apparently criticised guests’ table manners and threw their bags out of the windows!

Reading this on a computer at home? You can thank Sir Clive Sinclair for making this possible! Sir Clive was an inventor and entrepreneur, a pioneer of British technological development in the 1980s. As well as bringing the earliest accessible miniature computers into British homes, he also helped popularise the pocket calculator (to the relief of maths students all over the world!). Sinclair was also responsible for some other, less successful inventions – including an early electronic vehicle, the C5. A man ahead of his time!

You’ll also find Sinclairs on the big screen. Madge Sinclair (1938-1995) was a Jamaican Emmy-nominated actress whose roles included Queen Aoleon in Eddy Murphy’s 1988 romcom Coming to America, and voicing Sarabi, Simba’s mother in the Disney animated feature film The Lion King (1994).

Gordon Sinclair is an actor best known for playing the lead role in the iconic 1981 film Gregory’s Girl alongside Claire Grogan. Set in the Abronhill district of Cumbernauld, the film follows the awkward romantic endeavours of a group of teenagers against the backdrop of the school football team, and often appears on lists of the best coming of age films of all time.

What do you think of our list? Is there anyone you think we've forgotten? Get in touch and let us know! Look our for our upcoming Sinclair Blogs, but in the meantime check out the Sinclair Clan Page.