A drawing of Clanrye Mill in Newry when it was owned by Robert Sands Ltd. in the twentieth century. Caption 2. Caption 3. |
During the nineteenth century, there were two Sinclair families living in the town of Newry, Co. Down. Both were merchant families, and both played a significant part in the economic growth of the town. Yet they were not related. More information about one of the families can be found on the Sinclair (Fisher) pages, but it is the other family which is of interest here.
William Sinclair first appeared in Newry in 1834 when he set himself up as a meal seller in Water Street. In 1840, he married Ellen Walker, one of the many grandchildren of Thomas Walker, a successful merchant in Richhill, Co. Armagh, some 15 miles from Newry. According to family tradition, the Walkers were descendants of the famous Reverend George Walker, who led the townsfolk in their defence of Derry during the three-month siege by King James II in 1689. George Walker died in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne, but his descendants continued to live in Co. Armagh. Ellen's mother was Jane Redmond from another long-established planter family in Co. Armagh, originally from Yorkshire. The Walkers were Church of Ireland, but William was Presbyterian, which meant they could not be married in a church by a Presbyterian minister. Instead, they were married in her brother's home at Grange, a few miles south of Richhill.
During the following years, William built up a successful business as a corn miller, taking in his nephew, Abraham Redmond Walker, as a partner. By 1865, though, Walker had left the business and established his own corn mills. William and his only son, Abraham Walker Sinclair, continued running the original business as Sinclair & Son on Canal Quay. In 1872, their mill burned down - not uncommon in the years before towns had their own professional fire brigade. Clanrye Mill was rebuilt at a cost of £10,000 and is still being used as an animal feed depot.
Abraham married Mary Margaret Davis, the daughter of William Alexander Davis, a well-known doctor in Newry, and Medical Attendant to the Newry Workhouse. Abraham became a magistrate for Co. Armagh. They lived at Sugar Island and had eight children, four of whom died young.
By the late 1880s, restrictions on Canadian corn entering Britain had been lifted and Irish corn-milling began to suffer. William had semi-retired to Warrenpoint and died in 1880. Abraham finally gave up the business in 1891 and moved to Belfast, where he worked for the Flour Merchant Commission. He died in 1908 and Ellen died in 1928.
More information and the genealogical charts tracing the Newry Sinclairs are only accessible to members of the family.