John George Tollemache Sinclair

A carte-de-visite portrait of the Scottish landowner and Liberal politician John George Tollemache Sinclair (1824-1912), who inherited almost 80,000 acres and on the death of his father in 1868 became 3rd Baronet Sinclair of Ulbster, in the County of Caithness. He served as MP for Caithness from 1869 to 1885. His majority of 13 over the Conservative candidate at the 1874 election is one of the smallest on record.

According to his obituary in The Times (2 October 1912), he 'was the last survivor of the company present at the marriage of Queen Victoria, which he attended as page to Queen Adelaide.' The same source calls him a 'zealous and liberal landlord' and claims 'it would not have been easy to discover a tenantry more contended or who had better or more friendly relations with the proprietor.'

In 1853 he married Emma Isabella Harriet Standish, daughter of William Standish Standish of Duxbury Park in Lancashire and Cocken Hall in Durham. The couple had two sons and two daughters. They were divorced in 1878 on the grounds of her infidelity with two men, Henri Audibert and Louis Lacroix, in the South of France, Paris and Calais (The New York Times, 13 July 1878).

Sir Tollemache Sinclair died on 30 September 1912.

Photographed by Maull and Polyblank of London.

From an album compiled by the sitter's sister-in-law, Laura Margaret Mulgrave Standish (1842-1909), who married Edmond Berkeley Lucy in 1869.