Have you ever heard of a man named Henry Sutton?

Yeah I haven’t either. But apparently he was quite a guy.

Born in 1855 and dying in 1912, he was in every possible sense – a born and bred, true-blue Aussie inventor. I don’t mean that he, like so many countless millions of others, was born in England and then migrated to Australia. I mean that he was literally born in Australia – in the rural gold-rush town of Ballarat – which is one of the most Australian places you could possibly grow up in: Goldfields, native wildlife, scorching heat, freezing cold, venomous snakes, dusty earth, flies, mosquitoes, and poisonous spiders.

What could possibly be more Australian than that?

Among his many achievements, Sutton invented variations of (or made improvements on) such devices as telephones (which came to Melbourne in the 1880s), the television, early radio transmitters and receivers, batteries and dynamos, and he even had a hand in developing front-wheel drive for cars…Impressive, considering he died in 1912, when most people had hardly heard of cars, let alone owned one!

The Sutton family owned a series of musical instrument shops in Victoria, Australia at the time. No doubt being in contact with musical instruments, and all their finely-fitting mechanical parts from a young age would have shaped Henry’s mind and life, and turned him towards being the inventor that he would soon become.

It’s been my great pleasure to meet, and become friends with two of Henry Sutton’s direct descendants – His great-granddaughter, Lorayne Branch, and her cousin, the wonderful Kelly Sargent. In fact, it was from Kelly that I first heard about Henry Sutton.

When I met Lorayne last year, she told me how she bemoaned the fact that nobody had written…anything of note, really…about her illustrious ancestor…and she felt that an opportunity was being missed.

To this end, she decided to do it herself, go it alone, and write the first official biography of what is one of Australia’s most famous, but probably least-known sons. Henry Sutton. She’s even set up a GofundMe page. If you want to find out more, then visit the link and learn more about the history of this fascinating man, and donate, if you feel so-inclined 🙂