William Seneca Sutton was born August 12, 1860 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. At eighteen he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts followed by a Masters of Arts in 1880 from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He began his career as a teacher in Arkansas and moved to Texas in 1883 to serve as principal in Ennis, Texas. In 1884 Sutton married Annie Blackman Erwin. He served for a number of years as principal and then superintendant for the Houston public school system in Houston, Texas. In 1897 Sutton took up the position of professor of Pedagogy at the University of Texas in Austin, where, in 1898, he founded and became the dean of the summer sessions that lasted approximately twenty years. In 1905 Sutton was honored with an LL. D. degree from the University of Arkansas. The School of Education at the University of Texas was established in 1905 and Sutton was named its head in 1909. He served a one-year term as President of the University of Texas, in 1923-24; and was named Dean Emeritus in 1927.
During his tenure at the University of Texas, Sutton published numerous papers on education reform, was an instigator at the 1907 state conference on education that resulted in the passing of constitutional amendments favoring Texas public education, and assisted in the establishment of the Texas Academy of Sciences at the University of Texas. His work in education and pedagogy was instrumental to the establishment of the School of Education at the University of Texas as well as to training teachers of public education in Texas. W.S. Sutton died on November 26, 1928. The Education building at the University of Texas was re-named Sutton hall in his honor in 1930.
From the guide to the Sutton, William Seneca, Papers 1933, 1952., 1894-1928, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
