Born Betty Brooker in 1916, she had a younger brother Peter, killed in WWII who had a distinguished career in the RAF as a Squadron Leader and Wing Commander, and a younger sister, Mary. She lost her father when she was still a young girl of 12 and soon learned the demands of responsibility, being the eldest child in a single parent family.
Head Girl at Roseberry School Epsom, she was an early female graduate from Kings College, London where she read Household and Social Science, followed by a postgraduate year at Girton College, Cambridge. She was one of a very small minority of female university graduates in 1937. In WWII she was Director of Surrey school meals.
Later she worked for the Marmite Company in London. With her husband, Bruce she had four boys, and after the war her main concern became their upbringing. She became a professional curator to historic houses and gardens, finally occupying with her family, Batemans, the home of the famous English poet and writer, Rudyard Kipling.
It was here that from 1965 to 1983, concurrent with her role as curator, Mrs Sutherland became guardian to a large number of children from overseas who were at boarding school in England, and Bateman’s was their “home from home.” She then consequently founded what some experts believe to be the first guardianship association in the UK, “The Kith and Kind Association.” This dovetailed into Sutherland Education founded by her son, Andrew Sutherland.
