Charles Gordon Sinclair was born in Highgate, North London, on 26 January 1906, the second son of Charles Purves Sinclair, general manager of the Colne Valley Water Company. He was educated at Shirley House School, Watford, and at St Paul's School, West London, before entering St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School. He represented his school and also his medical school at fives and qualified in 1928. After early hospital appointments he became house surgeon to the ophthalmic department of St Bartholomew's and later served as clinical assistant in the department until he passed the FRCS in 1932. He then joined a general practice in Lewes from 1932 to 1949 when he moved to a post as clinical assistant to the Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital. In 1959 he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist to Worcester Eye Hospital and to Worcester College for the Blind until he retired as a surgeon in 1971, although he continued in ophthalmic practice until 1984 when he finally retired. Throughout his life he was a committed Christian and a Crusader leader in both Lewes and Worcester. He married Margaret Puleston, a radiographer, in 1934 and they had two sons and a daughter who has qualified as a nurse and a midwife. He died on 28 January 1990 aged 84.