2 minute read
BOOK REVIEW –SIR ARTHUR MUNRO SUTHERLAND
1981 building programme at Eskdale Terrace: upper: Dining Hall; lower: Geography, Woodwork and Biology replaced by Miller Theatre/PAC
Advertisement
And so we arrive in Jesmond, where the governors had purchased 10 acres called Brandling Fields. Mr Samuel Charles Logan (1883-1912), Headmaster since 1883, moved to a house in Brandling Park and impressive new buildings in Eskdale Terrace, so familiar to us today, were designed by Sir Edwin Cooper, born in Scarborough, with offices there and in London, who is said to have designed more buildings in the City of London than any man since Wren. The buildings were occupied in 1906 and opened by the Duke of Northumberland in 1907, under the headship of Mr Logan. As war approached, in 1912, Mr Logan was succeeded, by John Talbot (1922), a military man. Talbot’s plans for a Junior School and expansion of the site remained unrealised, but throughout the 20th Century, under his successor, Ebenezer Rhys Thomas (21-48), and initially through the generosity of Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-83) and later Chair of the Governors, the school campus was greatly (and brilliantly) expanded within the original boundaries. The saga of how Mr Thomas’s successors as Heads guided the development of the school into the amazing campus of today is well told in the Mains and Tuck History and later in the NOVO and ONA Magazines, now all available online through the RGS website.
BOOK REVIEW
SIR ARTHUR MUNRO SUTHERLAND THE LEGEND OF NEWCASTLE
BY NIGEL MCMURRAY
As the Amazon synopsis of the book states ‘this remains a definitive analysis of a man whose business acumen led to a little remembered philanthropic legacy in Newcastle, not least in its Medical and Dental Schools. Most Geordies are aware of him in terms of the Newcastle Mansion House but that is but a small aspect of his former legendary status in the city.’
We of the RGS, of course, still have numerous examples of his huge generosity, the most enduring of which is the Organ and War Memorial in the School Hall, recently restored, and installed almost 100 years ago, on 1 June 1923.
This is not a large book, but its subject is a man of enormous talent and energy, whose generosity left its mark in so many ways on our School. The author covers everything some of us might know but few will be aware of the complete story of this man’s extraordinary life. Copiously illustrated, McMurray has researched Sutherland’s life to the full, as his sources indicate. This book is an essential read for anyone wishing to learn of the complete story of a true legend of the City of Newcastle, the RGS and the world of shipping.
