22347: Dugald Sinclair

Dr Dugald Sinclair (1860-1961), son of John Sinclair and Isabella Macdougall from Melfort, Argyllshire, was the doctor in the Parish of Lochs from 1884-1888. He studied medicine at Glasgow University and graduated in 1882. He spent two years as an assistant to a Dr Anderson in Dennistoun, Glasgow where he worked without holidays for 70 pa and his board and "seldon the use of the good doctor’s precious borough mare". It was then that he saw an advertisement for the post of Medical Officer for the parish of Lochs at 150 a year guaranteed, and in addition, what he could make from private practice.

In 1884 there was no house for the doctor so he stayed with a fellow Argyll man, Alexander Crawford, the headmaster of Knockiandue, who acted as an interpreter when Dr Sinclair’s Argyll Gaelic was inadequate for understanding his patients complaints.

Dr Sinclair returned to Glasgow in 1888 and set up in general practice in Maryhill, Glasgow. There he stayed until his retirement in the 1920s. When asked on his hundredth birthday what he would change if he had his life over again, he said; "I would be a sheep farmer. From my early, kind associations, that is what I always wanted to be".