William Sutherland (24 August 1859 – 5 October 1911) was a Scottish-born Australian theoretical physicist, physical chemist and writer for The Age (Melbourne) newspaper.

Entering as a science student at University College London, Sutherland came under the influence of Professor Carey Foster, and in the final examination for the BSc degree took first place and first class honours in experimental physics and the clothworkers scholarship of £50 for two years.

[2] For many years he earned just enough to pay his way by acting as an examiner and contributing articles to the press; the rest of his time was given to scientific research.

[2] Sutherland wrote on such topics as the surface tension of liquids, diffusion, the rigidity of solids, the properties of solutions (including an influential analysis of the structure of water), the origin of spectra and the source of the Earth's magnetic field.

The ordinary reader may refer to a discussion of his scientific work in chapter VI of Osborne's biography of Sutherland, but the full value of it could only be computed by a physicist willing to collate his papers with the state of knowledge at the time each was written.

Modest[1] and selfless, Sutherland was content to add to the sum of human knowledge and to hope that another person would carry the work further.

Sutherland wrote an equation describing Brownian motion and diffusion which was published in a 1904 paper, which he presented at a Dunedin ANZAAS conference.