the Archdeacon treasures the pleasantest recollections. “There were seven of us children, and few could have had a happier home,” he once told the readers of the Sunday Companion. “We had the kindest, wisest and best of parents, whose influence was felt not only in the parish, but throughout that part of West Sussex. The highest ideal of duty was always held up to us, and the example of the father in dignity and wisdom, of the mother in ceaseless energy in doing good, were beyond the lot of most…. We were early taught to ride, and our parents supplied us with as many ponies as we wanted. To think of those long gallops over the springy turf of the South Downs brings back a keen relish after twenty-four years of life in the midst of London.”
Reared under such happy influences, there can be little wonder that the eldest of the family soon developed a bent for the Church. A desire to try for a scholarship at Eton was overcome by the wish of the parents, who, no doubt, acted wisely in placing their son under that famous headmaster, Dr Pears. Repton in those days was building up a reputation, now so long sustained, for producing men for the world of athletics. Young Sinclair must have been there when the Fords and Palairets, of cricket fame, were fast coming and going, and about the same time as the Archdeacons of Dorset and Macclesfield, who, like himself, were destined to be appointed to high positions in the
