William Sinclair (United Irishmen)
Reverend William Sinclair (died 1830) was an Irish Presbyterian minister and revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Society of United Irishmen.
Early life
Sinclair graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1775. By 1786 he was preaching in Newtownards, County Down.[1]
United Irishmen and 1798 Rebellion
On 14 October 1791, he was one of 12 men including Henry Joy McCracken and Wolfe Tone who met to form the Belfast Society of the United Irishmen. In time his brothers George and Thomas would also join. George would briefly be Adjutant General of the United forces of County Down in June 1798, shortly after the arrest of Reverend William Steel Dickson on the eve of the Battle of Ballynahinch.[2] William was found guilty of treason after the 1798 Rebellion and was sentenced to transportation and exile in America.[3]
America
Sinclair was imprisoned on the Postlewaithe prison ship in Belfast Lough in June. There he shared his sentence with a cadre of other Presbyterian minister rebels, including William Jackson and Robert Simpson.[4] Arriving in the United States, Sinclair was embargoed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, due to his radical liberal views. He was later accepted by the Presbyterian church in Baltimore, Maryland[5] where he also set up a school with Samuel Knox in 1808.[6] He died in Baltimore in 1830.
References
- Kerby A. Miller 2003, 'Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan : Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815', Oxford University Press
- Kenneth L. Dawson 2003, Moment of unity - Irish rebels and Freemasons, 'Irish News', May 10, 2003.
- David Wilson 1998, 'United Irishmen, United States: Immigrant Radicals in the Early Republic', Cornell University Press.
- Maryland Historical Society 1955, 'Maryland Historical Magazine'.