Lister Sinclair
Canadian actor (1921-2006)
Lister Sheddon Sinclair, OC (January 9, 1921 – October 16, 2006) was a Canadian broadcaster, playwright and polymath.
Early life
Sinclair was born in Bombay, India, to Scottish parents. His father, William Sheddon Sinclair, was a chemical engineer. He was sent to live with an aunt in London when he was 18 months old and saw his parents again when he was seven.
He taught himself to read at the age of five and began his formal education at Colet Court. Though at the bottom of his class, he was gifted at mathematics and won a scholarship to St Paul's School in London. In 1939, assured by a travel agency that there would be no war, he visited North America with his mother to attend the World's Fair in New York City. He was visiting Niagara Falls, Ontario, when World War II broke out. Due to a back injury as a teenager, Sinclair walked with a limp and used a cane until well into his twenties and was unfit for military service. He and his mother found themselves stranded on the continent and settled in Vancouver where his mother had friends.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lister Sinclair” as canadian actor (1921-2006). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as canadian actor (1921-2006). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3256483. VIAF identifies the subject as 86201539. The Library of Congress control number is n79081743. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2006 and 1939.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Lister Sinclair”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Lister Sinclair primary sources, Lister Sinclair archive and Lister research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Lister Sinclair” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.