PROFESSOR I. L. G. SUTHERLAND

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26671, 4 March 1952, Page 8

PROFESSOR I. L. G. SUTHERLAND

BODY FOUND AT SUMNER

INQUEST OPENED AND ADJOURNED

About 6 p.m. on Sunday a 14-year-old boy found the body of Professor Ivan Lorin George Sutherland in a secluded spot in a gully near the School for the Deaf at Sumner.

The police were notified and the body was brought to the morgue at the Christchurch Public Hospital by Sergeant A. K. Scally. Death apparently had occurred some days before and direct identification was impossible, so relatives could not be informed until yesterday morning. An inquest was opened yesterday afternoon at the hospital before the Coroner, Mr Raymond Ferner, and adjourned to March 14 after evidence of identification had been taken. Constable F. W. Flanagan represented the police. Evidence Given Henry Rainsford Hulme, Rector of Canterbury University College, gave evidence of identification. He said the clothes shown to him belonged to Professor Sutherland and the signature on the driver’s licence was his. "The photographs in the wallet I identify as being that of his widow and family. There is also a letter addressed to Dr. Sutherland, of Canterbury University College,” said witness. “The last time I spoke to Professor Sutherland was on Wednesday, February 20. I was attending the Parent-Teacher Association at the Christchurch Girls’ High School and Professor Sutherland was present. I was only speaking to him for about half a minute and he seemed all right. He said he was in a hurry to get back home. During the last five to six months he was suffering the effects of having had pleurisy. The last time I saw him was at the college on February 21.”

The Coroner ordered a post-mortem examination and the inquest was then adjourned. Professor Sutherland, who was Professor of Philosophy at Canterbury University College, had been missing since Thursday, February 21, when he was last seen at the college by some of his colleagues about 1 p.m. When he arrived at Jthe college he parked his car and went to his room. The car remained all Thursday night where he had left it and was returned to his home on the Friday morning by college authorities. The last authentic news of his whereabouts was in a report that he had been seen standing near the Sumner tram in Cathedral square on the afternoon of the Thursday he went missing. An intensive search of areas near Sumner was made last week without result DR. SUTHERLAND’S CAREER Dr. Sutherland was appointed professor of philosophy at Canterbury University College in 1936, and since then had been prominent in the activities of the university and of many community organisations. Born in Masterton. he went from the District High School there to the Bank of New Zealand, but later entered Victoria University College, taking the degrees of master ot arts, and being awarded the Senior Scholarship in Philosophy and Psychology and the Jacob Joseph Scholarship. A post-graduate scholarship enabled Professor Sutherland to go to the United Kingdom in 1921, where he studied for a doctorate in philosophy at the Universities of Glasgow and London.

A fellowship of Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, was then offered but Professor Sutherland returned to New Zealand to become lecturer in philosophy at Victoria University College. He went to America, how®Y er : 1929 read a paper at the Ninth International Congress of Psychology at Yale. In 1946-47 he made an extensive tour of the occupation forces in Japan as an education officer in company with Professor lan Gordon, and during that time studied the Amu people. Anthropological studies had interested Professor Sutherland for many years, and he was keenly interested in the welfare of the Maori people, he had travelled extensively m the Pacific islands, but when he was granted refresher leave last year he chose to remain in New Zealand to round-off a research into the ■customs of the Maoris. This dealt mainly with the influence of Europeans on the native people from early times, and culminated in examination of present-day problems The undertaking had the support of the Council of Educational Research and the Maori Purposes Fund Board. Previous publications had won Professor Sutherland membership of the council of the Polynesian Society. Besides some field trips last year. Professor Sutherland spent some time research at the Turnbull Library at Wellington, and planned to spend the remainder of his leave compiling the whole of his findings. Lecturing made Professor Sutherland widely known in Christchurch. He often served the Workers’ Educational Association and was a leading figure in recent developments to organise assistance by the social sciences m New Zealand. He had worked in rehabilitation activities in the university and in the community. He was first president of the Christchurch branch of the United Nations Association.

Professor Sutherland is survived by his wife and five children.