Hugh Sinclair

Hugh Montgomerie Sinclair (1855-1924) was the Royal Engineers officer who supervised the partial demolition of the Bamboula mound at Larnaca in 1879. He trained at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, won the Pollock Medal in 1874 and came to Cyprus with the corps in 1878¹. The work at Bamboula ran from late April to at least early July 1879 to fill the stagnant harbour basin, and up to half the mound was destroyed¹. Charles Newton wrote that the swamp was being filled in under the direction of Lieut. Sinclair¹⁰. His report, signed at Larnaca on 5 July 1879, gives about ten weeks, about 350 pounds and about 16,500 cubic yards moved, and lists walls, conduits, wells, two mooring stones and two painted Phoenician inscriptions⁹. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter wrote in 1893 that what was saved there was due to Captain Sinclair's attention⁴. The British Museum holds a copy of the report, enclosed with Newton's report of 8 July 1880 on a small collection that Earl Granville offered the Museum; Newton's thanks to the Trustees did not name Sinclair⁹.

Kiely and Fourrier say that road construction near Aradippou under his supervision in early 1879 exposed ancient tombs and that he asked permission to excavate more¹. In 1881 he became private secretary to the High Commissioner, Robert Biddulph¹. In 1883 he took charge of the Cyprus Museum after Herbert Kitchener left¹. Reinach reports the Museum's Voni excavation beginning on 21 May 1883 under Captain Sinclair and Richter³. As Keeper he divided the Kourion finds in 1883-84². Ohnefalsch-Richter recorded a silver-leaf plaque from Kourion as in Captain Sinclair's possession in 1884⁴.

He left Cyprus early in 1886 for Ireland and Samuel Brown succeeded him^1,2. He later served in the Ashanti war of 1895-96, the Boer War and India, retired as colonel in 1912 and was recalled in the First World War. His memoir Camp and Society appeared in 1926, edited by his widow, and says little about archaeology¹.