Walter Riddell Sutherland (19 October 1890 – 4 October 1918), also known as Wattie Suddie, was a

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

international

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player.

Early life

Sutherland was the son of Alexander and Isabella Sutherland of the Imperial Hotel in

Hawick Hawick ( ; sco, Haaick; gd, Hamhaig) is a town in the Scottish Borders council area and historic county of Roxburghshire in the east Southern Uplands of Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-south-east of Selkirk. It is one of ...

Roxburghshire Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh ( gd, Siorrachd Rosbroig) is a historic county and registration county in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It borders Dumfriesshire to the west, Selkirkshire and Midlothian to the north-west, and Berw ...

. He was educated at Teviot Grove Academy before training to be a sanitary inspector in Hawick. He also played cricket and football and was a champion runner, winning the Scottish Borders title at multiple distances.

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

He played for

Hawick RFC Hawick Rugby Football Club is an semi-pro rugby union side, currently playing in the Scottish Premiership and Border League. The club was founded in 1885 and are based at Mansfield Park at Hawick in the Scottish Borders. Splinter from Hawick an ...

Provincial career

Sutherland played for the

South of Scotland South of Scotland may refer to: * The southern portion of Scotland ** Geography of Scotland * South of Scotland (Scottish Parliament electoral region) * South of Scotland (European Parliament constituency) * South of Scotland District (rugby union) ...

1910 Events January * January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas '' Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York C ...

International career

He gained 13

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. Caps typically have a visor, or no brim at all. They are popular in casual and informal se ...

s playing for the

Scotland national rugby union team The Scotland national rugby union team represents Scotland in men's international rugby union and is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The team takes part in the annual Six Nations Championship and participates in the Rugby World Cup, ...

between 1910 and 1914 and was regarded as the best Scottish wing threequarter of his day.

Military career

The outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

put end to his rugby career, and he served with the

Lothians and Border Horse The Lothians and Border Horse was a Yeomanry regiment, part of the British Territorial Army. It was ranked 36th in the Yeomanry order of precedence and was based in the Scottish Lowland area, recruiting in the Lothians – East Lothian (Had ...

, later the

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...

and finally the

Seaforth Highlanders The Seaforth Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs, The Duke of Albany's) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, mainly associated with large areas of the northern Highlands of Scotland. The regiment existed from 1881 to 1961, and saw servic ...

. Second Lieutenant Sutherland was killed in France on 4 October 1918, aged 27, just five weeks before the

armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the La ...

. He is buried at the Houchin British Cemetery in

Pas-de-Calais Pas-de-Calais (, " strait of Calais"; pcd, Pas-Calés; also nl, Nauw van Kales) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments ...

References

External links

"An entire team wiped out by the Great War"
''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...

'', 6 November 2009 1890 births 1918 deaths Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders officers British Army personnel of World War I British military personnel killed in World War I Hawick RFC players Lothians and Border Horse officers Rugby union players from Hawick Scotland international rugby union players Scottish rugby union players Seaforth Highlanders officers South of Scotland District (rugby union) players Rugby union wings {{UK-army-bio-stub