Was born in 1824 educated at the University of Edinburgh, and succeeded his father in the title and estates in 1855. He was soon afterwards appointed Lord-Lieutenant, Vice-Admiral, and High-Sheriff of Caithness. He was a Lord-in-waiting to Her Majesty under Lord Palmerston's Administration, 1856-58, and again in 1859. For several years he was Governor of the British Fishery Society.
His Lordship was elected one of the representative peers for Scotland in June 1858, in room of the Earl of Morton, and again in 1865. On May 1st, 1866, on the recommendation of Earl Russell, he was created a Peer of the United Kingdom by the title of Baron of Barrogill Castle, in the county of Caithness, the patent being to himself and the heirs-male of his body lawfully begotten.
Lord Caithness was well known in scientific circles, and for many years was a Fellow of the Royal Society, In early life he developed a strong taste for mechanics and other scientific pursuits. So strongly was his mind bent on engineering that he wrought for nearly a year at works in Manchester in order to get a practical insight into the subject, walking to his work a mile and a-half in order to begin at six o'clock, summer and winter.
He became the patentee of a great many useful and ingenious inventions. One of these was a tape-loom, which enabled a weaver to stop one of the shuttles without stopping the whole, as had to be done previously. For this invention he received £500, but always said had he been a business man he would have made a fortune by it, as it had been so universally adopted, and such an immense saving had been obtained by its use. Another of his inventions was the Caithness Gravitating Compass, which is one of the steadiest known to navigators, and is used by many of the largest shipping companies. He was very proud of this compass, and thought more of it than of all his other inventions combined. He also invented a road locomotive with carriage, in which he travelled from Inverness to Barrogill Castle, attaining a speed of sixteen miles an hour on level roads. As road locomotives were then quite new, his journey created no little sensation in that district. Another ingenious invention by his Lordship was a machine for washing railway carriages.
He was for several years a most active director of the London North Western Railway, and a member of the Committee on Rolling Stock - the only stock, he used to say; of which he had any knowledge. Amongst his own people and his tenantry he was especially popular, and he will long be remembered as the most genial and warm-hearted of those noblemen who have ruled at Barrogill. Considering the size of his estates, few if any of the proprietors did more for the improvement of their property than he. He was the first in the North of Scotland to use the steam plough. Although not a literary man, Lord Caithness was in frequent request as a lecturer on sanitary subjects, and in 1877 he published a series of five of these lectures.
He was married in 1847 to Louisa Georgina, youngest of the three daughters of Sir George Philips, Baronet, of Weston House, Warwickshire, and formerly Member of Parliament for Poole, by whom he had one daughter and one son -
NOTE - Marie, late Countess of Caithness, Duchesse de Pomar, died in 1895. She was authoress of "The Mystery of the Ages" and other Theosophical publications. At "Holyrood", her salon in Paris, celebrities of cosmopolitan note were accustomed to assemble.
Lord Caithness died at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, on the 28th March 1881. He was on the point of starting on an extended tour in America with his son and daughter when his death took place. His remains were embalmed, and sent back to Scotland for interment. He was buried on the 19th April 1881, in the Chapel Royal, Holyrood, where are also interred the remains of his first Countess, and of his father, mother, and grandmother.
George Philips Alexander, Earl of Caithness, succeeded his father in 1881.
In the same year he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Caithness.
His sister Lady Fanny died at Barrogill Castle after a very short illness on the 11th October 1883, greatly lamented.
She was interred in the churchyard of Canisbay on the 17th of the same month.
Lord Caithness died suddenly at the Palace Hotel, Edinburgh, on the 25th May 1889.
He was buried at Holyrood on the 29th of that month.
He was the last male of the senior branch of the Sinclairs of Mey, whose representation now passed to James Augustus Sinclair, of the Durran branch.
The Barony of Barrogill, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, became extinct.
On his death Barrogill Castle and the estates of the Mey family became estranged from the dignity.
GEORGE VI 53RD (15TH) EARL 1881-1889
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