William Sutherland (Scottish politician)

The Right Honourable Sir William Sutherland KCB
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 7 April – 19 October 1922
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	The Viscount Peel
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Salisbury
Personal details
Born	4 March 1880
Died	19 September 1949 (aged 69)
Alma mater	Glasgow University

Sir William Sutherland, KCB PC (4 March 1880 – 19 September 1949) was a Scottish civil servant, Liberal Party politician and colliery owner. He was closely associated with Prime Minister David Lloyd George serving as his private and press secretary and later as his Parliamentary Private Secretary. He was one of Lloyd George’s go-betweens in the sale of honours for the Lloyd George Fund. In his dealings with the press he would certainly have been labelled a spin doctor if that phrase had had currency in the early twentieth century, indeed he has recently been described as "the first of the modern spin doctors".

Sutherland was born in Glasgow, the son of Alan Sutherland. He was educated at The High School of Glasgow and at Glasgow University where he gained an MA degree. On 27 August 1921 he married Annie Christine Fountain, CBE of Birthwaite Hall, near Barnsley. The wedding was attended by Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Mrs Lloyd George. His wife died in 1949. His uncle, Angus Sutherland was Liberal MP for Sutherland from 1886-1894.

Sutherland entered the civil service after leaving university and was appointed to the Board of Trade. This was where he first attracted Lloyd George’s attention when he was President of the Board of Trade. Sutherland helped Lloyd George prepare and develop some of his legislation. He made a particular study of the Land question and between 1909 and 1913 he wrote tracts or books entitled The Call of the Land, The Land Question and Rural Regeneration. He was also involved in the preparation of the legislation on Old Age Pensions and National Insurance and assisted in the implementation of these measures. In 1907 he wrote Old Age Pensions, in Theory and Practice, with Some Foreign Examples (published by Methuen). He also wrote a one shilling pamphlet in 1920 about the work of Coalition government of David Lloyd George, However the work was dismissed in the press as "no more than a child’s guide for Coalition candidates and other apologists of the government". By now a true intimate of the Welsh Wizard, he followed Lloyd George to the Ministry of Munitions, the War Office and, eventually to Number 10 Downing Street.

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