12/871 L/Cpl Robert Mills Sutherland, 13/2/1889-25/10/1922.

PRIVATE SUTHERLAND. 

Private Robert Mills Sutherland (wounded on May 15) was a son of Mr A. Sutherland, late of Orawia. He was born at Invercargill 25 years ago, and was educated at Merrivale. After leaving school he was apprenticed to the Southland Engineering Company, and, while serving with that distinguished himself as a rifle shot in the Awarua Forces. He joined the First Expeditionary Force, and was posted to the 16th Waikato Infantry, but was afterwards transferred to the machine gun section.  -Otago Daily Times, 28/6/1915.

Robert Sutherland's Army Record describes a slight gunshot wound to the head at Gallipoli.  Slight though it was, it sent him to hospital back in Egypt.  It also shows some time spent in hospital in 1916 with a venereal disease.

September 1916 saw Robert with the Auckland Regiment on the battlefield of the Somme.  He was evacuated with an unspecified wound acquired in action but stayed in hospital with a testicular swelling due to his VD - which is later diagnosed as tubercular.  July of 1917 saw him on the "Ionic" bound for home.

His cause of death is recorded as due to a cerebral abcess cause by tuberculosis.

Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.

FOR THE EMPIRE’S CAUSE. 

DEATH. 

SUTHERLAND. — At Invercargill, on October 25, 1922, Robert Mills, dearly beloved husband of Lily Sutherland, and eldest beloved eon of A and D Sutherland, 6 Grace street; aged 33 years. 12/571, Main Body, Auckland Battalion. Interment at Anderson’s Bay Cemetery. — Hope and Kinaston, undertakers.   -Press, 30/10/1922.

OBITUARY.

One of the first New Zealanders to land on the Gallipoli peninsula, Mr Robert Mills Sutherland, died at the Southland Hospital last week. He joined the 16th Waikatos at the outbreak of war and was a member of the Main Body, Auckland battalion. When the battalion embarked for the landing Mr Sutherland was in the first boat. He was wounded in the shoulder on Gallipoli and sent to England for hospital treatment, returning to his battalion during the rest in Egypt prior to the embarkation for France. In the Somme battle of 1916 he was again wounded, this time severely, in the hip, and from that wound he never fully recovered, it being the ultimate cause of his death. When discharged from the army he tried working at his trade, that of an engineer, and acepted a position with the "Southland Times" Company, but was unable to continue owing to his war disability.   

Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.