Hereditary Chief of Clan Sinclair |
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Born on 3rd November 1948, Malcolm Ian Sinclair, the Lord Berriedale (the title given to the eldest son of the Chief), inherited the earldom and that title in 1965 upon the death of his father Roderick, the 19th Earl of Caithness. The title dates from about 871 when Caithness, Orkney and Shetland were part of the Norwegian Realm and Rognvald, Jarl (Prince or Earl) of Moeri was granted the title of Earl of Caithness and Orkney by King Harald of Norway. In 1455 King James II of Scotland, with Caithness but not yet Orkney and Shetland under Scottish rule, regranted the peerage of the Earl of Caithness to Sir William Sinclair of Rosslyn. Therefore, Malcolm Sinclair is both the 58th Earl (including the Nordic dynasty) and 20th under Scottish law and Hereditary Chief of Clan Sinclair.
Malcolm was educated in Scotland and then at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, England. Before going to the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester to obtain his qualification as a Chartered Surveyor, he spent a year travelling and working abroad in the USA, Australia, and Africa. Having completed the three-year course at Cirencester, Malcolm worked for a firm of land agents in Oxfordshire, England to obtain his final qualification. Following his marriage in 1975 he decided to carry on working in Oxfordshire, and following a change of jobs began working part of the time in London… soon shifting his business life full-time to London. His hereditary peerage gave him the right to sit in the House of Lords and politics soon became an important feature in his life together with his business. In 1984 his career changed again when Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister invited him to join her reforming government. He started as a Whip and Lord in Waiting to The Queen before progressing to an Under Secretary of State at the Department of Transport, and then Minister of State at, successively, the Home Office, Department of the Environment, the Treasury, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and back to the Department of Transport. He is the only hereditary peer in the last century to have served in the three great Departments of State (Foreign and Home Offices and Treasury). While in the Treasury he also served as Paymaster General. He was created a Privy Councillor to Her Majesty The Queen in 1990. Since 1994 Malcolm has been doing consultancy work for various companies and jointly founded Victoria Soames Ltd., and more recently Rickett-Tinne, a flourishing London Real Estate Agency. As one of the remaining hereditary peers he also still takes an active part in politics in Parliament. Malcolm dedicates a lot of his time to the Sinclair Clan around the world. He is Chief Executive of the Clan Sinclair Trust, the main aim of which is to preserve the historic ruins of Sinclair Girnigoe Castle near Wick in Caithness – the only castle in Scotland listed by the World Monuments Fund. He was Convenor of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs from 2004 to 2011, and helped organize the very successful Gathering and Convention as part of the Scotland Homecoming in 2009. Malcolm organized the first Clan Sinclair International Gathering in Caithness in 2000 and the most recent in 2015. Plans for the next International Gathering are underway for July 2025. |