Guard of Honor for Brigadier James Sinclair, Earl of Caithness, held by Major B.R. Heyn.
In 1949 he was appointed the first Commander of the Ceylon Army and played a major role in establishing it as a regular army from the volunteer Ceylon Defence Force till 1952. On returning to the UK he was given various postings in England and Scotland before in 1955 being appointed land agent and manager of Her Majesty The Queen's private Estate at Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire where he lived until his death. After leaving the army, he was appointed Colonel of his old Regiment the Gordon Highlanders.[2]
Sinclair succeeded his sonless paternal uncle as 19th Earl of Caithness.
His first wife, by whom he had three daughters (Jean, Margaret and Fiona), died during the war and after it, in 1946, he married a widow Gabrielle Ormerod (1912–1990), whose husband had been killed on active service in Africa leaving her with a daughter (Susie). In 1947 while posted to Germany another daughter (Bridget), was born and the next year in Burma, Malcolm, Lord Berriedale was born. Upon his death on 8 May 1965,[3] his son Lord Berriedale became the 20th Earl of Caithness and chief of Clan Sinclair.