Sutherland SINCLAIR

SINCLAIR, SUTHERLAND (b. Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, 25 Oct 1851; d. Sydney, NSW, 3 May 1917). Merchant, museum curator and church worker.

The son of the Rev Sutherland Sinclair, United Presbyterian minister, and his wife Margaret Callander, Sutherland Sinclair was educated at Greenock Academy and was engaged in mercantile business from 1866 to 1879. He arrived in Sydney with one brother in 1879 (two more arrived in 1881 and 1888). In 1882, he was appointed secretary to the Trustees of the Australian Museum, later adding the duties of librarian, storekeeper and deputy curator. He collected specimens in the New Hebrides in 1894 and wrote some learned papers.

In 1873, he became superintendent of the Govan UP Sunday School in Glasgow; seven years later he commenced 26 years in the same role at St Peter's Presbyterian Church, North Sydney. He was an office-bearer or committeeman of Scripture Union (1883), Sydney Industrial Blind Institute (1886), Sydney City Mission (1911) and the Bible Society (1912). In 1896, he began the first Boys' Brigade group in New South Wales, and was Captain of the 1st Sydney Company. His desire to reach children with the Gospel was also shown by his Junior Catechism, or Shorter Catechism Simplified, which went through several editions. A museum tribute called him a 'gentle, sincere, unostentatious, upright, truly religious man .. whom any person might have been proud to call friend'. One of his Sunday Scholars, Professor Alec Chisholm, commented that 'his soul had been moulded vicariously in Galilee'.

A R Chisholm, Men were my Milestones (Melbourne, 1958); The Messenger 24 Dec 1909, 834; Australian Museum Records 1917, 227; H J Gibbucy & A G Smith (eds) Biographical Register 1788-1939 vol 2 (Canberra 1987), 261

MALCOLM D PRENTIS