George Sinclair

The first recorded baptism of a child begotten out of wedlock, to James Sinclair Younger of Latheron, named George Sinclair, appears in the Latheron baptism records on 13 December, 1757.

 

https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/virtual-volumes/ Latheron kirk session, Baptisms 1754-1765 Pg 41

Unfortunately the Session records for 1757, when the elders would have interrogated both the parties, are not available. So we cannot know how the Session elders reacted to James and the woman being ‘with child’, whether he was fined and how much, nor who the mother was.

That the child was baptised with the surname Sinclair would at least indicate that the session elders had been involved and that the mother, at any rate, had satisfied church discipline, meaning she would have had to stand in sackcloth before the congregation to indicate her repentance. Baptism of the child would only have been allowed after that. James should have suffered the same humiliation plus a fine but as future events indicate he usually managed to avoid that.

As the witnesses are from Latheron and are both named George maybe they named the baby after themselves indicating they were aware of the circumstances of the mother and would be supportive of her and baby George Sinclair. They may have been tenants of James Sinclair. 

 

James Sinclair, Younger, of Latheron started young enough on a lifestyle that he would repeat many times over the next twenty years. He was about 18 years old when George was born. In future accounts of women who ‘are with child’ to James, they often say they are, or were, ‘in his employ’.

 Detail of engraving showing Scotswomen singing a waulking song while waulking or fulling cloth, 1772

I have taken the liberty of using this engraving detail to illustrate the scale of James Sinclair’s predatory activities. To the left of the picture is one man leaving the scene. The original engraving had ten women working together. I have added two more faces to illustrate the twelve records I have located of women falling pregnant to James Sinclair. Over a twenty year period each one of these twelve women bore a child to James Sinclair Younger of Latheron, begotten out of wedlock. I hope that somehow they were able to connect with each other and show some womanly support with the older women supporting the younger women. We can tell by their hair and headdress arrangements that some are married and others are single.

To be continued…