A HISTORY OF THE RGS IN ITS PEOPLE by David Goldwater (51-62) Entering School in 1951, young RGS pupils soon became under the influence of strange mantras. On learning The School Song, there were a number of anomalies lacking explanation. For example, whilst ‘Motherland, King and God’ was swiftly replaced after 6 February 1952 with ‘Motherland, Queen and God’, no-one cared to explain why boys enthusiastically sang ‘Sutherland etc.’ The reason for this substitution was quite simple in that, as a prominent school Governor from 1919 until his death in 1953, Chairman from 1935, Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland’s (1878-1883) fame arose from his huge generosity as the greatest benefactor in the school’s history.
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Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1867-1953) Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland’s grandfather, Benjamin, left Thurso in northernmost Scotland in 1825 and sailed to Newcastle to join the multitude of Scottish immigrants who crowded into the Quayside area of the city and married the same year. He was a bootmaker and by the mid1850s was running a sizeable master shoemaker business in Northumberland Street. Benjamin’s third child (of eight) was Benjamin John Sutherland, who having received a good education at the Percy Street Academy and after a number of successful positions in local businesses, established his own enterprise in Broad Chare, Quayside as a chemical broker. Undoubtedly, a bold entrepreneur, he became a major importer of flour from Canada and the USA and rumour has it that his Gateshead Steam Flour Mills were located where Rank’s Mill, now the Baltic Arts Centre, is situated. By the 1890s BJ Sutherland & Co. were in Sandhill, Newcastle. Having become involved in local Liberal-Unionist politics, Benjamin was appointed Sheriff of Newcastle in 1891. Committed methodists, the Sutherlands were married at Brunswick Place Wesleyan Chapel and later became members of the Clayton Road Methodist Chapel from its opening in 1883. Benjamin John’s son, Arthur (the third of nine children) persuaded him to move into the shipping trade and the Sutherland Steamship Co. Ltd was founded. Success in business resulted in them moving through a number of good addresses ending with Thurso House, which would become the Mansion House in Jesmond’s Fernwood Road.