[2] He was born at Market Street, Denton, Manchester, the youngest of four sons of hat trimmer William Rutherford and his wife Mary Swindells.
In 1936–39 and in 1946, Rutherford presented the BBC Television light entertainment programme Cabaret Cartoons,[Note 2] in which he drew variety artists as they performed their acts.
[9] He returned to Hyde in the late 1950s to 17 Nelson Street and was elected President of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.
In his later years, he taught at the Regional College of Art in Manchester, where his pupils included the painter Geoffrey Key.
[10] In 2008 Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council opened an exhibition space in Hyde Library to display permanently the town's collection of Rutherford works.