9th November 1934 to 25th June 2018
Ann Sutherland, who died on 25th June 2018, was best known in the cartographic community for her long-term leadership of the Map Curators’ Group (MCG). Her influence extended to her active membership of the British Cartographic Society’s Council and its Programme Committee, and she regularly attended annual symposia. Attendance at both BCS Council and the British and Irish Committee on Map Information and Cataloguing Systems (BRICMICS) in London was important for communication between the worlds of cartography and map curating.
Ann was born in London on 9th November 1934, the only daughter of Mary and Victor Barker. She was taken with them to the English West Country, but when her father returned from France in 1940 they moved to Annan where he oversaw munitions supplies. After a boarding school education completed at Holy Trinity Convent in Kidderminster, she matriculated at the University of Edinburgh where she read History, completing an MA in 1960. Teaching for a term in Dunfermline proved unappealing and Ann joined the staff at the University of Edinburgh’s Medical Library in 1960. She met Ian Sutherland, a lecturer in bacteriology, when he started to use the Library after returning from research in Germany in 1964 and they were married in July 1966. Their daughter Karen was born on her mother’s birthday in 1967. Returning from a year-long post at Freiburg im Breisgau, the family settled in Liberton, Edinburgh in 1974. Ann commenced work in the University Library’s Centre for African Studies in 1968, moving to the Library’s Special Collections in the 1980s. Her love of maps, used regularly on family walking holidays in Switzerland, made her an ideal map curator. Ann’s talent for helping students and her natural enthusiasm became widely known, attracting the notice of Margaret Wilkes, Head of the Map Library of the National Library of Scotland. Ann helped with the move of the NLS to Causewayside in 1988. Margaret and Ann combined to continue the Edinburgh ‘three-day event’ involving the MCG, the British Cartographic Society and the Charles Close Society. Organizing lectures, seminars and visits to other map collections was Ann’s forte.
Until the BCS was founded, map librarians came from a variety of backgrounds: often geography; history; survey or specialist disciplines, such as geology. Helen Wallis, then of the British Museum, was the energetic force for a group to bring all map curators together. The Map Curators’ Group deliberately did not make it compulsory to be a member of the BCS. Several conveners succeeded Helen Wallis, and Barbara Bond resolved that a regular newsletter called Cartographiti would appear in 1983. The next decade saw several short terms of service as Convener until Ann, who took over the reins in 1993. Ann’s regular contributions to Convener’s Corner, named first in 1998, give us a series of commentaries and nostrums reflecting the state of map collections and their curators in Cartographiti. She already had an excellent grasp of the issues affecting the MCG, even the need to justify the need for map curation. Choosing an appropriate theme for the next MCG meeting was one of her main duties. A key to her success was the relationship established with the editors of Cartographiti and only three of these served during the 25 years of her service: Nick Millea, Jonathan Rowell and Tinho da Cruz. Editor and Convener provided both a basis for progress often in adversity. The Directory of Map Collections was another project which was completed. With these and with other cartographic friends Ann was solicitous about their welfare and personal circumstances. She was unselfish in her sense of propriety and commitment to her role as a leader of map curators, sometimes hiding from us the problems she herself faced.
Ann’s power of persuasion was legendary but was accompanied by the attention to detail required to ensure that speakers had appropriate support. She was particularly skilled at organizing people and continued a programme of training days at places where an organizer on the spot could be cajoled to follow suggestions for willing speakers with rapporteurs signed to cover proceedings. She presided over the introduction of the online Map Curator’s Toolbox. For this and the support for those who presided over the BCS, she was awarded Honorary Fellowship in 2013, having been elected a Fellow of the Society in 1998 after less than a decade of membership.
This service was freely given to the MCG and the BCS with determined enthusiasm and a sure sense of what was right. For many years she sat on the General Council of the University of Edinburgh as the representative of the graduates, demonstrating their confidence in her ability to speak up honestly. Ann was also a conscientious Secretary of the Liberton Association, her local amenity group, liaising with planners, councillors and MPs for the benefit of her local community.
None of this would have been possible without the support of her husband Ian and daughter Karen. In recent years mobile telephones and texting facilitated the communication between them. Smart phones and e-mails introduced friends to their Siamese cats through pictures at their Liberton home. Travel to the near continent on walking holidays or on cultural excursions featured wine and food, wild flowers and Old Masters or modern painters and artists. Conversations were never dull or ill-informed. Moving around Paris by bus was argued to be better than by the Metro, which denied them the pleasure of seeing the city from an elevated gaze of a bus window.
I have lost a dear friend and shall personally miss my being able to talk to Ann frankly about almost anything. That said, especially on telephone calls, one was sometimes left in no doubt about an unwise decision, or a personal clash of interests affecting work or living. One could express a view discretely, as one might when asked for advice. We are all confronted by a huge gap by her passing. Those past excursions in the London area in the company of someone I now know is of my generation, impeccably turned out, will be recalled at those same venues, whether Dulwich, Greenwich, Gravesend or Margate. Our sincere sympathy is due to Ian and Karen who will miss them much more.
Chris Board acknowledges help by Karen Sutherland and Paula Williams in writing this obituary.