Alexander Sutherland

Alexander Sutherland (26 March 1852 – 9 August 1902) was a Scottish-Australian educator, writer and philosopher.

Early life and background

Sutherland was born at Glasgow, both parents were Scottish, his father, George Sutherland, a carver of ship's figureheads, who was of ill health, and his mother was an engraver Jane Smith-Sutherland, a woman of character and education. His siblings include painter Jane Sutherland (1853–1928), author George Sutherland (1855–1905), and physicist William Sutherland (1859–1911). The family came to Sydney, in colonial Australia, in 1864 on account of George Sutherland's health, and Alexander, aged 14 years, became a pupil-teacher with the education department.

Career

Sutherland arrived in Melbourne, Victoria in 1870, he first taught at John Meeson's Hawthorn Grammar School, then entered on the arts course at the University of Melbourne where he was taught by William Hearn, was largely supported by scholarships, and graduated with honours in 1874. For two years he was a mathematics master at Scotch College, and in 1877 succeeded George Henry Neighbour as proprietor and principal of Carlton College. The school was so successful that 15 years later he was able to retire and devote himself to literature. He was responsible for the first volume of Victoria and its Metropolis (1888), a history of the first 50 years of the state of Victoria. In 1890 he published Thirty Short Poems, the cultured verse of an experienced literary man.

Upon Hearn's death in 1888, Sutherland purchased Heronswood, on the Mornington Peninsula, as his summer residence.