Lisburn man was the first Irish medic to receive Victoria Cross

John Alexander Sinton was born on 2 December 1884 in Victoria, British Columbia, third of the seven children (one brother and five sisters) of Walter Lyon Sinton (1860–1930) and Isabella Mary Sinton (née Pringle, 1860–1924).

The Sintons were a Quaker family with extensive interests in the linen trade in the north of Ireland. In 1890 the family returned to Ireland and lived at Wheatfield House in Portadown, but Walter Sinton soon left his wife and family and returned to North America. In 1901, the family lived at Olney Terrace on the Whiterock Road and, in the 1911 Ireland Census return, Isabella Sinton and six of her children were listed as living at Ulster Villas, 381 Lisburn Road. The Census return has a gap for John Alexander Sinton who was residing at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

John Sinton had attended Nicholson Memorial School (run by the Quaker community) in Lisburn before transferring to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI) in 1899. After RBAI, he attended Queen’s College, Belfast where he was one of the most distinguished students in the Belfast Medical School. He graduated with first class honours in 1908, gaining a Bachelor of Medicine (1st Class), Bachelor of Obstetrics (1st Class) and Bachelor of Surgery (2nd Class). In 1910 he was awarded the Diploma in Public Health (with a £10 prize) by Cambridge University and was the Riddel Demonstrator of Bacteriology at Queen’s under Professor Symmers. As a precursor to joining the Indian Medical Service, he studied at the School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, where he took first place in the examinations.

John Sinton’s brother, Victor Walter Sinton, was a civil engineer who was prominently associated with the manufacture of munitions at the factory of James Mackie & Company and his uncle, Mr Edwin Sinton, was a well-known officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force in Lisburn.

In July 1911 John received a commission as a Lieutenant (Medical Officer) with the Indian Medical Service and was attached to the 31st (Duke of Connaught’s Own) Lancers, serving on the North West Frontier as a Captain. When the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force commenced operations in the Persian Gulf, he requested a transfer to an active service unit and was posted to the 37th (Prince of Wales’ Own) Dogras.

Olney Terrace appears under Whiterock Road and Ballygomartin Road in the 1901 Belfast Street Directory, but only under Ballygomartin Road in the 1907 Belfast Street Directory. The 1901 Ireland Census lists the Sinton family as living at 8 Ballygomartin Street (which does not appear in the Belfast Street Directory). As Regimental Medical Officer, Sinton spent more time treating his men for illness than for battle wounds during the early stages of the campaign, but he displayed the highest degree of bravery in several actions. The one for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross occurred on 21st January 1916 at the Orah Ruins in Mesopotamia, where the Turks were inflicting heavy casualties on the British troops under siege at Kut-el-Amara.

Under near suicidal conditions, Captain Sinton tended the wounded men under heavy fire and without regard for his own safety. He was hit by rifle-fire five times, being wounded in both arms and in the side. However, he refused to leave the firing line and continued treating the wounded until darkness finally ended the shooting. His “conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty” earned him the Victoria Cross. Fittingly, Sinton’s VC is on display, alongside a painting of the action for which it was awarded, at the Regimental Museum of the Royal Army Medical Corps in Aldershot.

John Alexander Sinton was the first Queen’s College/University graduate, and the first Irish medic, to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

In May 1917 he became a Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services with the Indian Medical Service. Before the war ended, he was mentioned in despatches four times and received the Order of St. George (4th Class), a gallantry medal awarded by Imperial Russia.

In 1917 and 1918, he served with the East African Force (Tanganyika) and commanded a Cavalry Field Ambulance as part of the East Persian Cordon Field Force. Between August 1918 and April 1919, he was the Senior Medical Officer to the Turkistan Military Mission.

In 1919 he was awarded the MD (honoris causa) by Queen’s University, Belfast in recognition of “his early academic distinctions and his valour in the field.” The same university awarded him a Doctorate in Sciences for his work on phlebotomus (a mild viral disease transmitted by the bite of the sand fly) in 1927.

In late 1919 Sinton returned to India and served in the Mahsud and Waziristan campaigns in Afghanistan, being mentioned in despatches on two occasions. In 1921 he transferred to the civilian branch of the Indian Medical Service and was taken on to the staff of the Medical Research Department at the Pasteur Institute (Kasauli, near Simna). In the same year be became an Officer of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for “… valuable services rendered in the field with the Waziristan Force.”

He was also the recipient of the Indian General Service ribbon, with three clasps in June 1921

In January 1923, John Alexander Sinton was promoted to Major and, on 19th September, he married Eadith Seymour Steuart-Martin. Their daughter, Eleanor Isabel Mary Sinton, was born at Kasauli on 9th December 1924. John was the first Director of the Malaria Survey of India (now the Malaria Institute of India), an institute that was, under Sinton’s direction, to become one of the chief malaria research centres in the world. He spent the next 15 years researching the treatment of malaria before retiring from the Indian Medical Service in 1938.

After retiring, Sinton became Manson Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a researcher with the Horton Malaria Laboratory.

At the start of World War Two, Sinton joined the Home Guard as a Private, but was soon rescued by the War Office and spent the remainder of the war as a peripatetic advisor on malaria control.

As a Brigadier, he served in India, East Africa, the Middle East and, in 1944, he oversaw the treatment of an outbreak of malaria in southern Italy.

On 21st March 1946, John Alexander Sinton was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society for his work as a malariologist and record of his qualification to become a member ends : “It is doubtful if any other author during the last thirty years ... has contributed more largely and importntly to scientific knowledge of malaria or has worked more originally and assiduously to advance such knowledge.”

John Alexander Sinton was the first (and probably only) man entitled to include the letters “VC” and “FRS” after his name.

Brigadier Sinton died at his home, Slaghtfreedan Lodge, at the age of 72, on 25 March 1956 and he was buried with full military honours at Claggan Presbyterian Cemetery in Cookstown.

Such was the esteem in which he was held a tradition started whereby veterans in the Cookstown Royal British Legion gathered at his graveside on the eve of Remembrance Sunday to pay homage.