She was the holder of an earldom in the Peerage of Scotland, and was chief of Clan Sutherland.

[2] Sutherland was born in Chelsea, London, on 30 March 1921, the only child of Elizabeth Demarest (1892–1931), a daughter of Warren Gardener Demarest of New York City, and Major Lord Alastair Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (1890–1921), a son of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland.

In 1931, her mother married Baron George Osten Driesen; she died three months after their wedding.

[3] The dukedom and the other titles that could only pass in the male line were inherited by the Earl of Ellesmere.

[4] She subsequently dropped the double-barrels in her family name, in order to be recognised as chief of Clan Sutherland.