Selina Murray McDonald Sutherland (1839 - 1909)

Born 26 Dec 1839 in Burnside, Culgower, Highland, Scotland

Ancestors

Died 8 Oct 1909 at age 69 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

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Biography

Selina Sutherland is Notable.

Selina Sutherland is a member of Clan Sutherland.

Selina was born in 1839. She was the daughter of Baigrie Sutherland and Jane or Jean MacDonald. She passed away in 1909.

In 1839 a daugther was born to Baigrie and Janet Sutherland of Culgour in the parish of Loft, Sutherlandshire, Scotland. They named her Selina after Janet's mother Selina Murray. Selina was a serious child and read a great deal, her choice of literature usually turned to health and to helping the poor and suffering. As she grew up, she made a study of medicine until at last she became a very competent nurse and a strong minded women who was a law unto herself.

In 1862 Selina journeyed from Scotland to see her sister Margaret Grant who she had not seen for ten years. Margaret Sutherland had married the Scottish Robert Grant who had taken up 3000 acres in the Gladstone district, Wairarapa, New Zealand. Margaret did not recognise Selina who wore a most unfeminine type of coat & waistcoat, a man’s Glengarry on her short hair and horror of horrors a kilted skirt so short it revealed her legs.

Selina was soon in great demand as a nurse. The back country roads of the Wairarapa were little better than tracks winding through bush & unbridged rivers became raging torrents, but whatever the weather, whatever the hour, away Selina would ride, side saddle to the aid of those who called for her help. Maori and Pakeha alike knew that neither flooded rivers nor stormy nights would keep Selina Sutherland from them in their hour of need. Selina became obsessed with the idea that Masterton needed a hospital. She started to collect money and interest people in the idea and in the year 1877 the hospital was opened.

The Grant's homestead, Bannockburn was burned down in 1879 and Selina went to Wellington. She later went to Melbourne and was appalled on seeing the slum areas and suffering children. She campaigned & raised money for homes. Committees had to be formed to help run these homes, & after a disagreement with them she decided to leave. When she did, she strode out followed not only by the children but by the staff. The procession through the streets of Melbourne caused a sensation but caught the imagination of the people & money poured in for new and better Sutherland Homes. Perhaps the highlight of her career was when she was presented to Queen Victoria at the time of the Royal Diamond Jubilee. The Queen knew her story and presented Selina with a magnificent diamond. Much as Selina prized the gift she was not the diamond type & when she got back to Melbourne she sold it to raise money for more homes. Selina died in 1909 at the age of seventy years. A brass tablet to her memory was placed in the Masterton Hospital in 1910. It reads

In Memoriam Selina Sutherland who by her unswerving self sacrificing ministrations to the sick and afflicted and by her touching appeals on their behalf largely contributed to the establishment of the first hospital in the Wairarapa. In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me.

Today, the Selina Sutherland ward is next to the main hospital.

In Melbourne a granite memorial was placed over her grave. It reads For 28 years an unwearied friend of Melbourne's poor, the truest helper of the fallen, and the devoted foster-mother of all destitute little ones, for whom she taught Victoria how to care having rescued 3000 waifs from the streets and slums. She hath done what she could.

Those who remembered her first appearance at Gladstone no longer smiled with amusement, they were only proud to know she had lived among them.

Sources

• Unsourced family tree handed down to Neil Day.

Biography author is unknown, handed down to Neil Day.

• Biography of Selina Sutherland https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s54/sutherland-selina-murray-mcdonald

• Ngā Maharatanga o Wairarapa: the past around us. Edited by Catherine Morrison, 1991.