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The Robert Sinclair Tobacco Company never produced one of the famous blends that still live on in legend, so they're relatively obscure, yet they played a fairly major role --- which was their huge success with distribution, especially in Northern England and Scotland, so much so that Imperial bought 'em out.
Although this is all rather useless information here, I thought I'd share it as I'm going through all the different players in the olde UK tobacco industry and this fits into that frame to help sort out the complex interconnections involved.
So,
in 1855 Robert Sinclair , who had come from the Orkneys, opened a small tobacconist shop in Dean Street, Newcastle. In that rapidly growing industrial city the business prospered and Robert, along with his brother John, moved to a larger premises in Nun Street where they ventured into tobacco manufacture - in fact it was in the cellar of the Nun Street shop that Golden Brown Twist, destined to become a leading popular brand of pipe tobacco in the North of England, was first made.
In due time, they built up a sizeable market.
But their partnership dissolved in 1885.
Robert Sinclair kept going and moved again to larger premises, on Blenheim Street in 1914.
A major event occurred in February 1913 when the Robert Sinclair Tobacco Company, hired the services of Bentfield C. Hucks to deliver a new brand of tobacco in special souvenir tins from the Newcastle Town Moor to the surrounding area including Blyth and Seaham. Hucks, an aviator who had participated in the 1911 Daily Mail air race flew his Bleriot monoplane powered by a 80hp engine from the Town Moor between 11th and 18th February.
A stamp printed in deep green commemorating the event was produced showing Hucks in his aeroplane with the words "First Aerial Delivery" above the picture and "By the Robert Sinclair Tobacco Co. Ltd., Newcastle-on-Tyne, Feb. 1913" below.
In 1931, a controlling interest was acquired in Robert Sinclair Ltd. by Imperial, who characterized Robt. Sinclair as "a Newcastle upon Tyne firm who were then tobacco wholesalers in a big way and tobacco manufacturers in a small way, in the North East."
Tobacco manufacturing still continued under the brand name, and the wholesaling side was developed with expansion into Scotland.
In 1953, Robt. Sinclair discontinued production and went exclusively into wholesaling.
The former brands were transferred to Ogden's of Liverpool for production from that point on.
Imperial controlled or had major interests in multiple tobacco retailers or wholesalers asround that time - Finlay & Co., Bewlay, Collis Distributors Ltd., and Robt. Sinclair - the latter two were merged at some later point to become wholesale distributors, Sinclair Collis.
Sir Robert Sinclair's son, Robert John Sinclair became Chairman of that enormous conglomerate Imperial Tobacco from 1947 to 1959.
This document sheds a little light on how vast Imperial was,
(statement concerning the monopolies commission report on the tobacco industry)
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=qme90a99
&
a more in-depth historical overview here:
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=jzm24a99
The Sinclair Building, which is located on Blenheim Street around the corner from Blenheim House, is the original home of the company. It was built in 1913, and is a four story brick warehouse and factory with a stone cornice and roof top railings.
Scant examples of tins survive, but here's a few.
