Margaret Sinclair

Margaret Anne Sinclair (29 March 1900 – 24 November 1925), religious name Mary Francis of the Five Wounds, was a Scottish Catholic nun of the Colettine Poor Clares. She was declared venerable by Pope Paul VI on 6 February 1978.

Life

Family Andrew Sinclair, from Edinburgh, husband to Elizabeth ('Leebie') Kelly, from Dundee, moved to Edinburgh in 1897 from Dundee. She had two older siblings, John and Isabella, and three younger - Andrew, Elizabeth and Lawrence. Before Lawrence was born, Margaret's parents lost two children, first James, who died aged only a year old; then Mary, alive for only a matter of days.

Parents Andrew and Elizabeth were married on New Year's Day, or the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, in the Church, in 1896. St. Joseph's Church in Dundee was the venue for the wedding, but Margaret's parents left Dundee within a year, so that Andrew returned to Edinburgh with his wife. Elizabeth was Catholic from birth, but Andrew converted so that they could marry.

Andrew had gone to Dundee to search for work, and whilst Elizabeth worked manufacturing jute in a mill from thirteen years of age onward, Andrew became a tanner. On returning to Edinburgh, he found work with the town council as a road-sweeper, rising early and being paid a low wage.

Church Life Margaret Sinclair was baptised at St Patrick's Church on 11 April, 1900. On 8 May 1910, she was confirmed in St Patrick's Church, Edinburgh and received the Eucharist for the first time.

Both her older brother John and her father served in World War I. Sinclair left school at the age of fourteen and, from 1914 to 1918, worked full-time at Waverley Cabinet Works as an apprentice French polisher, and became an active member of her trade union.

The Scottish economy had been heavily dependent upon the war; a depression followed the end of the Great War. Many activities necessary for the war economy, such as arms production and ship construction, no longer played a major role in the Scottish Economy; the skills required to undertake these tasks were not easily transferable to the civilian economy. Margaret was unemployed, and by 1918 the Waverley Cabinet Works had shut its doors. She would later find work in a biscuit factory run by McVitie. thumb

Margaret contracted laryngeal tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium run by the Sisters of Charity at Warley, Essex, on 9 April 1925, where she remained until her death on 24 November that same year,

St. Patrick's Church in Old Town, Edinburgh contains the National Shrine of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair.