George Sutherland received his secondary and further education at Sydney Grammar School, Scotch College, Melbourne, and Melbourne University. He was a teacher at various schools in Victoria then took up journalism. After an assignment on the Darling River he joined the staff of the South Australian Register, a position he held for twenty years. In 1902 he joined the editorial staff of the Age in Melbourne.
Sutherland published on a number of subjects. With his brother Alexander Sutherland, he published the popular History of Australia from 1606 to 1876 (1877) and The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1901 (1907). He wrote Tales of the Goldfields (1880), Sixteen Stories of Australian Exploration and Settlement (189-?), Easy Stories for Australian Children: A Junior Reader of Australian History Correlated with Geography (190-?) and Pioneering Days: Thrilling Incidents across the Wilds of Queensland with Sheep to the Northern Territory in the Early Sixties (1913). His writing about South Australia included Australia: England in the South (1896) and The South Australian Company: A Study of Colonisation (1898). He published a livestock manual and a vinegrower's manual, and, himself an inventor, published Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast (1901). His talented family also included brothers Alexander and William, and sister Jane, who was in the group of plein air artists which included Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin.
See also the full Australian Dictionary of Biography Online entry for George Sutherland
