Peter Cormac Sutherland (14 April 1822 – 30 November 1900) was born in Newlands of Forse, near Latheron, Caithness, Scotland.

The son of Robert and Elizabeth Sutherland, he was one of three surviving children of a family of eight, due to smallpox and a drowning accident in Nova Scotia.

on board HMS Lady Franklin and Sophia and from which his book Journal of a voyage in Baffin's Bay and Barrow Straits originated.

The campaign was largely a success as they discovered the fate of several crew members of the polar expedition buried at the winter base station.

Sutherland later moved with his wife and two children to Pietermaritzburg, where he later became surveyor-general of Natal, South Africa, succeeding William Stanger.