Janet Colquhoun

Janet Colquhoun
Portrait from her biography
Born	17 April 1781 London, England
Died	21 October 1846 Helensburgh, Scotland
Nationality	British
Subject	Religion
Spouse	Sir James Colquhoun, 3rd Bt

Janet Colquhoun (pronounced /kəˈhuːn/; née Sinclair; also known as Janet Sinclair and Lady Colquhoun of Luss; 17 April 1781 – 21 October 1846) was a British religious writer. In her first book, James Hogg says that she concluded that "blind faith offers the only hope from the 'bottomless pit'." She was a philanthropist who was involved with several good causes and her it is said that she believed that the "fruits of faith will be evident in good work".

Janet Sinclair was born in London to Sir John Sinclair and his wife. Her father was a member of Parliament for Caithness. She and her sister were brought up by her father's mother at Thurso Castle. Sinclair became a Christian evangelist after being inspired by the abolitionist William Wilberforce.

Her name became Colquhoun when she married a Scottish aristocratic major in 1799. Her new spouse, Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, did not support her religious zeal, but he was the heir to an estate in Dunbartonshire. It has been proposed that Colquhoun and her husband were the models for the character of Rabina and George Colwan in Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Colquhoun was a philanthropist and she founded a small domestic college at her house where young girls could learn about cookery and needlework. Colquhoun's teaching were valued by the students at the college and this made a change from her experience when she had tried earlier to read the Bible to some of her own staff.

James and Janet Colquhoun had five children and a house in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh. The two boys were educated in Edinburgh and Lincolnshire before attending Edinburgh University. Her youngest son, John, went into the army and became a notable sports writer. She became a philanthropist supporting a number of worthy causes. Her religious enthusiasm led her to give up both novels and the theatre in the early nineteenth century and in 1811 she is said to have celebrated her thirtieth year by saying goodbye to her youth with no regret.