Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Sutton, Martin John
SUTTON, MARTIN JOHN (1850–1913), scientific agriculturist, born at Reading in 1850, was the eldest son of Martin Hope Sutton, senior partner in the seed firm of Sutton and Sons, which was founded by John Sutton in 1806. Martin John Sutton was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School until he reached the age of sixteen. He then entered the family business as a junior and, having become familiar with the work of every department, he was taken into partnership in 1871. In 1887 he became senior partner on his father's retirement. Before his time the firm already had a high reputation for its care in selecting and testing seeds, and for experimental work (inaugurated by his father) on the improvement of the potato and of agricultural grasses. He continued and extended these investigations in a thoroughly scientific spirit. He made searching field-trials both on the nursery grounds of the firm and on his private farms. He succeeded, by the help of the researches of the French botanist Vilmorin, in improving the methods of seed-selection, and he collaborated with Dr. J. A. Voelcker in experiments on grass-lands. Some of his results were stated in his standard book on Permanent and Temporary Pastures (sixth edition; 1902), to which a gold medal was awarded at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Under his guidance the firm of Sutton became celebrated for numerous and important new strains of farm and garden plants. His own interests centred in practical agriculture. He was a successful amateur breeder of cattle, sheep, and horses. He published important papers on wheat-growing and on agricultural education. He served for twenty-three years on the council of the Royal Agricultural Society and was a leading member of the Smithfield Club and of the London Farmers' Club. He was also a fellow of the Linnean Society, and a chevalier of the legion of honour and of the ordre du mérite agricole.
In politics Sutton was a conservative, with some characteristic reservations. He refused to stand for Reading in 1898 because he disapproved of his party's attitude towards the questions of liquor control and of religious teaching in elementary schools. He took his share in the work of county and municipal administration, and served as mayor of Reading in 1904. He was a staunch churchman of the evangelical type, sat for the diocese of Oxford in the Canterbury House of Laymen, and took part in founding the Imperial Sunday Alliance (1908). He was a generous supporter of religious, philanthropic, and educational institutions, especially in Reading and its neighbourhood.
Sutton was twice married: first, in 1875 to Emily Owen (died 1911), daughter of Colonel Henry Fouquet; secondly, in 1912 to Grace, eldest daughter of Charles Thomas Studd, the African missionary. By his first wife he had two sons and a daughter, who survived him. He died of heart-failure on 14 December 1913, while staying at a London hotel, and was buried at Sonning.
[Obituary notices in The Times, Daily Telegraph, Record, Evening Standard, and Nature; private information.]