Sinton Origins - The Stewarts in Ireland

Sinton Name Meaning & Origin

Sinton Coat of Arms

Recorded in at least three spellings including Sinton, Senten and Senton, this surname is of Anglo-Scottish pre 7th century origins. It is a locational name either from Sinton in Worcestershire, England, or from Sinton near Selkirk, in Scotland, an area for centuries under “English” control. In both place names the origin of the first element is uncertain; but may be a short form of “severn” meaning a stream, whilst the second is clearly the Olde English pre 7th Century “tun” meaning enclosure, settlement. During the Middle Ages when it was increasingly common for people to migrate from their birthplace to seek work further afield the custom developed that they would adopt the placename as a means of identification. Early examples of recordings include Alexander de Sintun, who in the year 1200 in Scotland witnessed a charter by Henry de Graham, and in 1269 a later Alexander de Sinton also appears as a charter witness in the similar rolls. The surviving church registers recordings include Agnes Senton, who married John Lowthe at St Margarets, westminster, on October 4th 1571, and the christening of Thomas, son of Robert and Elizabeth Sinton, on June 24th 1674 at St. Dunstan’s, Stepney. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Andrew de Synton, which was dated circa 1165, in the “Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland”, during the reign of King William “The Lion” of Scotland, 1165 – 1214. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to “develop” often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

Scottish: habitational name from a place near Selkirk, also spelled Synton. In the 12th and 13th centuries it is recorded several times as Sintun, from an unexplained first element + Old English tun ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’. In the British Isles, the surname is now found mainly in Northern Ireland.

A Sinton Family in Northern Ireland

The Irish on the Somme

Being the Second Series of “The Irish At The Front” By Michael McDonagh

Captain John A. Sinton, Indian Medical Service, was awarded the Victoria Cross, after the action at Shaikh Saad in Mesopotamia. The official record is as follows—”For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. Although shot through both arms and through the side he refused to go to hospital, and remained as long as daylight lasted attending to his duties under very heavy fire. In three previous actions Captain Sinton displayed the utmost bravery.”Captain Sinton was b. in Lisburn, co. Antrim, and is thirty-one years of age. He is a member of a well-known Quaker family. As a boy he went to the Memorial School in Lisburn, named after the heroic Brigadier-General, John Nicholson, of the Indian Mutiny, and afterwards attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He had a brilliant career in the Medical School at Queen’s University, Belfast. He took first place at the examination for the Indian Medical Service at the School of

Tropical Medicine in Liverpool. He went to India in 1912, and was attached to the 31st Duke of Connaught’s Own Lancers at Kohat. At the outbreak of war he transferred to the Dogras, in order to take part in the operations of the Indian Expeditionary Force in the Persian Gulf.

and built houses and a schoolroom there to accommodate his employees and their families.[3] Sinton devoted all his energy to the Ravarnette Weaving Company, which, at his death in 1890, was taken over in partnership by his youngest son, Edwin (1872 – 1935), and Benjamin Courtenay Hobson (1862 – 1935), the husband of Caroline. On his death his estate was valued at £12,919. Sinton and Hobson ran the Ravarnette Weaving Company with great success by developing a form of linen cloth that was used to cover the fuselage of the earliest aeroplanes. However, on 10 October 1927, the company was wound up due to an overload of stock that was unable to be paid for by a bankrupted American firm.Belfast Gazette: 941. 14.

Arthur Buckby Sinton, Rank: Flying Officer Service No: 119279 Date of Death: 26/06/1943 Age: 27 Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 515 Sqdn. Panel Reference Panel 129. Runnymeade Memorial in Surrey England Son of Frederick b. and Hannah M. Sinton, of Gilford, Co.Down, husband of Vera W. Sinton, of Gilford. John Sinton Birth: 1764, Ireland Death: Jun. 28, 1835 West Union Adams Co Ohio, USA [Father of David Sinton] John Sinton was the Son of David and Isabella (UNK) Sinton / Husband of Mary McDonnell they married July 23, 1801 at Friends Meeting House, Moyallan Co Down. They had 4 Children, Isabella Eliza Sinton, William Sinton, Sarah Sinton, and David Sinton . John and Mary were Quaker, and Emigrated , with their family, to Pittsburgh, PA. In 1830 they were in Adams CO., OH. Children: William Sinton (1804 – 1831)* Annie Stuart Sinton b. 19 February 1885 – Rostrevor, Co. Down, d.. 21 September 1973 – Rostrevor, Co. Down Buried Knotty Ash Burial Ground, Rostrevor, Father David Corry Sinton b. 21 February 1853 d.. 4 March 1936 Mother Annie Stuart McFadden b. 30 April 1857 – d.. 14 July 1931 Annie Stuart Sinton Registration District: Kilkeel Births Registration Quarter and Year: Jan – Mar 1885 According to her nephew David, she was the lady companion for many years to an elderly lady in Cobh, Co. Cork.

For the 1901 Census record for Annie Stuart Sinton click on 1901 Census Record

Margaret Sinton, b. at Brooklands, Belfast, 19 February 1842, bapt at Templecorran, Co. Antrim; marr. at Belfast 28 July 1864, Thomas Greer of Sea Park, Carrickfergus, and Grove House, Regent’s Park, London (eldest son of Alfred Greer of Dripsey House, Co. Cork, and St. Patrick’s Hill,Cork, by Helena his Ist wife, eldest dau. of Joshua Carroll of St. Patrick’s Place, Cork, by Sarah his wife; b. at 20 St. Patrick’s Place, Cork, 4 April 1837, bapt. at Inniscarra, Co. Cork, 24 August 1851; High Sheriff of Carrickfergus 1870, and of Co. Tyrone 1876, M.P. for Carrickfergus 1880-85, and was the last representative in the ImperialParliament for that ancient borough; J.P. for the counties of Antrim and Carrickfergus,F.R.G.S. and M.R.I.A. (Portraits by Sir Thomas Jones, P.R.H.A., at Sea Park.)

For The Quaker Meeting House & Greers go to http://www.bob-sinton.com/grange/book.php & http://www.gravesfa.org/gen712.htm

“Them Wild Woods”

Their grandfather was William Greeves 1719-1776 Father was John Greeves 1761-1843 & Margaret Nee Sinton . John in 1819 says the linen trade is very bad. Ann Greaves had 3 sisters, the eldest Mary, Jane & Susanna & a brother Thomas. Mary married 1814 Daniel O’Brien (brother of William) Anne Greer/Greaves married 25th Feb 1818 William O’Brien of Carlow at the Friends Meeting House (Quakers) in Upper Grange Co Tyrone. They emigrated to the U.S.A. 6 Months later and settled in New York. William d. 1845 Ann & William’s son Joseph O’Brien changed his name to Sinton.

John Sinton, JP, (b. Tamnaghmore House, Co. Armagh, 1 November 1835; d. Ravernet, Co. Down, 13 September 1890), a Quaker industrialist and philanthropist, was the seventh child of nine b. to Benjamin Sinton (1755 – 1836) and Dinah McConnell (1756 – 1816). Belonging to a large and well-known family descended from the Ulster-Scots Benjamin Cynton (b. c.1640), John Sinton purchased a linen mill at Ravernet (sometimes spelt Ravarnette), Co. Down, close to Lisburn, Co. Down in 1873, and established another one at nearby Drumnavaddy. He was the younger brother of Thomas Sinton (1826 – 1887), linen manufacturer and Quaker philanthropist, who created the new village at Laurelvale, Co. Armagh, in the 1850s, and cousin of industrialist David Sinton of Cincinnati, once one of the richest men in America. On 21 May 1857, Sinton married Eleanor Hemington at the Friends’ Meeting House at Chatteris, Cambridgeshire. They had six children, among them Walter Lyon Sinton (1858 – 1933), father of John Alexander Sinton, winner of the Victoria Cross (1916), and Caroline Sinton (1860 – 1918), grandmother of Lawrence John Hobson, O.B.E., C.M.G. (1922 – 1991), sometime Political Adviser to the High Commissioner for Aden and the Protectorate of South Arabia. John Sinton probably worked with his brother Thomas at Laurelvale until the 1870s, when he developed the mill at Ravernet, and built houses and a schoolroom there to accommodate his employees and their families. Sinton devoted all his energy to the Ravarnette Weaving Company, which, at his death in 1890, was taken over in partnership by his youngest son, Edwin (1872 – 1935), and Benjamin Courtenay Hobson (1862 – 1935), the husband of Caroline. On his death his estate was valued at £12,919. Sinton and Hobson ran the Ravarnette Weaving Company with great success by developing a form of linen cloth that was used to cover the fuselage of the earliest aeroplanes. However, on 10 October 1927, the company was wound up due to an overload of stock that was unable to be paid for by a bankrupted American firm.Belfast Gazette: 941. 14.

John Alexander Sinton VC FRS (1884 – 1956): Physician: malariologist and military doctor Sinton was a highly distinguished figure in the medical world in two rôles: as an army doctor who saw service in both world wars, and as a medical researcher, especially in malariology on which he became an outstanding international expert. He is particularly notable for being the only person to achieve the om’s highest military award for bravery, the Victoria Cross, and also to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the om organisation whose membership is composed of many of that country’s as well as the world’s most eminent scientists. Although b. in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sinton was nevertheless an Ulsterman through his parents, Walter Lyon Sinton, from a Quaker linen manufacturing family, and Isabella, of the Pringle family of Derrymore House estate, near Bessbrook, Co Armagh (which in 1859 had been bought and developed by John Grubb Richardson, member of the prominent Quaker linen-manufacturing family, whose relatives included his nephew Henry Barcroft, and great-nephew Sir Joseph Barcroft). John Sinton’s parents were married in the Bessbrook Friends Meeting House in 1880. The family moved back to Ulster in 1890, where John attended the Nicholson Memorial School, Lisburn, followed by the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, 1899-1902. While at school in Belfast John lived with his mother at Woodvale, in the west of the city. He then attended Queen’s College, Belfast (the direct forerunner of Queen’s University, Belfast but then still a constituent College of the Royal University of Ireland) and graduated MB, BCh, BAO with first class honours in Medicine, second class honours (first place) with exhibition in Surgery and first class honours with exhibition in Midwifery and Gynaecology. He took various medical posts in Belfast and also obtained the Diploma in Public Health, Belfast in 1910 and later the same year, the Diploma in Public Health of Cambridge, followed by the Diploma in Tropical Medicine (Liverpool) in 1911. He was first in the entrance examination for the Indian Medical Service and was gazetted lieutenant in the military branch of that Service on 29 July 1911. This was a period of a lot of research and progress by British and Indian Army doctors in the area of tropical medicine and pathology, especially concerning the investigation and treatment of protozoal infections. On arrival in India, Sinton was appointed Regimental Medical Officer to the 31st Duke of Connaught’s Own Lancers, based at Kohat in North West Frontier Province, and was also in charge of the Brigade Laboratory. In the period before the First World War he published a number of papers on cholera treatment, eosinophilia (a kind of white blood cell disorder) in helminth (parasitic worm) infections, and the culture of malaria parasites. In October 1915 he was posted as Regimental Medical Officer to the 37th Dogra Regiment which took part in the unsuccessful Mesopotamian campaign in southern Iraq, in very inhospitable territory (described by contemporary soldiers as “two ruddy long rivers [the Tigris and Euphrates] surrounded by miles of Sweet Fanny Adams”), with extremes of temperature and other conditions which could lead to greater casualties from disease than from battle. During fierce fighting in January 1916, the battle of Shaikh Saad, the 37th Dogra Regiment lost one British officer killed, three British and four Indian officers wounded, including Sinton, and 240 casualties in other ranks including 32 killed. Early on in the battle, Sinton suffered several gunshot wounds, but continued his medical duties despite this, ensuring that all the wounded were brought in and treated, even venturing out before dark. For this he was awarded the Victoria Cross, gazetted on 20 June 1916. The citation read: “For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. Although shot through both arms and through the side, he refused to go to hospital, and remained as long as daylight lasted, attending to his duties under very heavy fire. In three previous actions Captain Sinton displayed the utmost bravery.” He also was successful in controlling an outbreak of cholera, with a rigorous regimen of inoculations and other precautions. Mentioned in despatches four times, he was awarded the Russian Order of St George. After a period of invalid leave, he returned to service commanding Cavalry Field Ambulances. From August 1918 until April 1919 he was Senior Medical Officer, Turkistan Military Mission, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The same year Queen’s University awarded him the honorary degree of MD for his academic distinctions and in recognition of his war service record. In 1921-1936 he was attached to the Pasteur Institute of India based at Kasauli, a hill station near Simla, north-west India. He was soon transferred from there to become Director of the Malaria Survey of India, also based at Kasauli. During his time there he published (some as co-author) over 200 scientific papers on malariology, chemotherapy (he replaced, after large-scale trials, the unpleasant quinine treatment with a new drug, Plasmoquine), parasitology, immunology, laboratory and survey techniques and especially, 36 papers on Indian species of Phlebotomus (a genus of sandfly which carries leishmaniasis or kala-azar) on which he was the leading authority. He retired in 1936, having established for himself a reputation of international standing. His sandfly interest, which may have arisen from constant personal exposure to them in the Mesopotamian Campaign, yielded descriptions of twenty-seven Phlebotomus species, sixteen of which were new to science; he named one Phlebotomus eadithai after his wife (Edith Seymour Steuart Martin, whom he met and married at Kasauli in 1923) and another Phlebotomus eleanorae after his daughter (his only child, b. December 1924). Others honoured Sinton by naming three mosquito species, Aedes sintoni, Anopheles sintoni, and Anopheles sintonoides, one sandfly species, Sergentomyia sintoni, and one subgenus Sintonius of the genus Phlebotomus, after him. During the Second World War Sinton was appointed malariologist to the East Africa Force in 1940, in 1941 being transferred to the Middle East Command in the same rôle. He briefly retired again with the rank of Honorary Brigadier in 1943 but only for two weeks; he was re-employed by the War Office as a consultant malariologist to advise on malaria treatment in Assam, Burma, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Guinea, the Moluccas and the Solomon Islands. Sinton retired yet again at the end of the War, and redirected his life. First, he settled in Northern Ireland, buying a house near Cookstown, Co Tyrone. Further, instead of continuing his scientific work, he busied himself with more civic and public affairs, particularly at Queen’s University. He was appointed to the Senate in 1948, Pro-Chancellor in 1952, President of the Queen’s University Association in 1953 and President of the Queen’s University Services Club. He held senior office in the Belfast Old Instonians Association (the organisation of former pupils of his old school, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution), was a Justice of the Peace, High Sheriff for Co Tyrone in 1953 and Deputy Lieutenant in 1954. Queen’s University named a Hall of Residence in their Queen’s Elms student complex after him. His long list of honours and distinctions is headed by his election as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1946, which was largely for his outstanding work on malaria and leishmaniasis. In 1946 he was Robert Campbell Orator and Medallist of the Ulster Medical Society. Queen’s University awarded him a DSc in 1927, and he was awarded the Chalmers Memorial Medal of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 1929, and their highest award, the Manson Medal, just days before his death – it was presented to his widow later in the year. The Egyptian Government awarded his their Anti-Gambia Memorial Medal in 1950 for his services in a malaria epidemic in 1950. He was made an Honorary Member of the National Malaria Society of the States in 1930, from 1937 until 1946 he was a member of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations and from 1943 until 1946 a member of the Malaria Commission of the Medical Research Council. Sinton was a singularly energetic and industrious individual, personally rather intimidating yet popular socially, essentially selfless as well as courageous, not least when digging with his bare hands in the rubble of a collapsed house to rescue three young children buried in it, or tackling a highly venomous Indian krait snake which dropped out of a hanging basket onto a guest. In his retirement years in Northern Ireland he enjoyed fishing, gardening and bird-watching. He was related to Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton, the only person from Ireland to have won a scientific Nobel Prize (in Physics, 1951), which he was awarded for his work on splitting the atom in 1932. John Alexander Sinton d. at his home near Cookstown and was buried with full military honours at Claggan Presbyterian cemetery in Cookstown. B.: 2 December 1884 d..: 25 March 1956 Richard Froggatt Acknowledgements: Wesley McCann

Bibliography: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; London Gazette, 21 June 1916; Felix Lavery, Irish Heroes in the War (1917), 285-6; The Times, 27.3.1956, 13; Tyrone Constitution, 30 Mar. 1956; Nora Buzzell (ed.), The Register of the Victoria Cross (1981), 241; Farset Youth Project, Ireland’s VCs (1996), 89; John F. Riddick, Who Was Who in British India (1998), 332; Richard Doherty and David Truesdale, Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross (2000), 131-2, 231; Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society

Walter Lyon Sinton B.10d 3mo 1858 – Bessbrook, Co. Armagh, Ireland, om – [ s136 s696 ] d.. 28 September 1933 – San Francisco, California, States orica – [ s136 ] FatherJohn Sinton b. 1d 11mo 1835 – d.. 13d 9mo 1890 Mother Eleanor Hemington b. 8d 6mo 1837 – d.. 2d 7mo 1926 Spouse 1Isabella Mary Pringle b. 13 July 1861 – d.. 29d 7mo 1943 Married 9d 6mo 1880 – Friends Meeting House, Bessbrook, Co. Armagh, Ireland, om – [ s1374 ] Child 1 Victor Walter Sinton b. 8d 4mo 1881 – d.. 21d 11mo 1918 Child 2 Norah Kathleen Sinton b. 5d 7mo 1882 – d.. 20d 11mo 1948 Child 3 John Alexander Sinton b. 2d 12mo 1884 – d.. 25 March 1956 Child 4 Ivy Sinton b. 12d 11mo 1886 – d.. 5 September 1981 Child 5 Olive Sinton b. 20d 8mo 1888 – d.. 25 January 1978 Child 6 Eleanor Maida Sinton b. 22d 6mo 1891 – d.. 10d 12mo 1972 Child 7 Isa Mackie Sinton b. 27d 10mo 1894 – d.. 24 July 1981 Spouse Etta Marrette b. 29 August 1882 – d.. 2 September 1973 Married 4 October 1908 – San Francisco, California, States orica

Family of Elias Dawson of Philadelphia , PA., 1765-1805. From Dr. Mordecai M. Dawson, of Easton, Md., Edward M. Dawson, Esq., of Washington, d.. C., and others, the following: 1. Elias Dawson and Elizabeth Morton, dau. of James Morton, were m. at Grange meeting, near Charlemont, Co Armagh, Ireland, 5 mo. 25, 1763. They were members of the Society of Friends, and emigrated to Philadelphia about the year 1765, where she d. 9 mo. 19, 1768, aged 24 years. They had three children: 2-1. Mary, b. in Ireland, 3 mo. I1, 1764, d. 10 mo. 31, 1841, m. 12 mo. 9, 1784, Jacob Sinton, son of Thomas and Mary Sinton, of Ireland; said to have lived in Wilkesbarre, Pa. 2-z. William, b. in Philadelphia, 548 ‘The Dawson Family. . Sinton, 193. Index. Sales, Sinton, Jacob, 193

Markethill District No. 10 WM David Spnce, Loughgilly, 17 Lodges. DM William

Sinton, Markethill Sinton, John Alexander b. December 2, 1884 d. March 25, 1956WWI Victoria Cross Recipient. During World War I, he was a member of the British Army and a Captain in the Indian Medical Service Unit. Throughout the day and well into the last light of day on January 21, 1916, he attended the sick and wounded under the hazardous battlefield conditions of flying shrapnel and rifle fire. While performing his duties, he was severely wounded in both arms and his side. He didn’t let this stop him as he simply bound up the injuries and continued to help his…[Read More] (Bio by: Whispers From The Grave) Claggan Presbyterian Churchyard, Cookstown, Co Tyrone

Weaving in Markethill

The Belfast and Ulster Directory of 1904 described Markethill as incorporating 45 acres with a population of 739. There is mention of a weaving factory built by d..H.Sinton which, “has done a great deal of good to the town, giving employment to 80 persons” David Henry Sinton, a Quaker, grew up at Ballinteggart, Portadown. He built the original factory in Markethill about 1888. He and his family offour daughters and a son lived at Paxton House, Markethill until his death in 1909. The Gosford Papers (1882-1894) in the Public Record Office relating to the Armagh Union Electoral District show thatin the townland of Edenkennedy, Mr.Sinton had aLinen Weaving Mill consisting of:’A MILL 21 yards by 24 yards and two sheds, one18 yards by 4 yards, and the other 17 yards by 6 yards.’The Papers also record that Mr. Sinton leased a Mill Pond in the townland of Carricklane from the Earl ofGosford and that, with a 16 h.p. engine, there were 35 looms of which 30 were working in the factory.Following the death of d..H.Sinton, Thomas Henry Spence and John Bell Bryson, both natives of Portadown and owners of the Clonavon Weaving Factory, purchased the Markethill concern for ?1500 in October 1909.

Flax Growing

On the Continent, the growing of flax with subsequent processing is a major industry with the Belgian town of Courtrai the main market for flax grown in the adjacent countries of France and Holland. The better quality flax is water-retted in tanks under controlled conditions, but large quantities are dew-retted by spreading out on the field and allowing the heavy night dews to ret the woody matter in the plant. Most flax used in Northern Ireland today comes from Courtrai in the form of large bales of scutched flax delivered to the spinning mills of which there are still eight in business, the nearest to Portadown being Thomas Sinton & Co. Ltd., Tandragee.

Flax being harvested

Weaving and Spinning Flax