Alexander Sutherland Mackay was born on the 3rd June 1884 to Mary Anne Sutherland and Donald Mackay in Brisbane, Queensland as the third son of eight children. Before enlisting, Mackay was educated at the Grammar School in Brisbane and was employed as a bank manager at the Bank of Australasia in Brisbane.
He enlisted on the 1 July 1916 and was initially assigned to the 9th Brigade, 6th Reinforcements. He along with many others of this unit were transported to Sydney from Queensland and embarked on-board the HMAT Benalla on the 9th November 1916.
Arriving in Devonport on the 9 January 1917 and was transferred to Bulford camp for training. He did not leave for France until June of 1917 and shortly after his arrival, was transferred to the 3rd Division Artillery. He served with this unit in France until September when he joined the 30th battery of the 8th Field Brigade, the unit he would be with until the end of the war.
Mackay served either on the wagon lines or at the front from September 1917 to the end of the war in November 1918 with only a leave trip in Paris during the Christmas of 1917.
In December of 1918 he was given leave again, this time to Italy where he had hope of visiting Rome or Venice. Shortly after beginning his leave he was admitted to the 29th Stationary Hospital on the 14 December 1918 in Turin, Italy and died 4 days later of Broncho-Pneumonia (lobar). Alexander Sutherland Mackay is buried at Turin Town Cemetery, Turin, Italy.
Alexander’s older brother Douglas Donald Mackay, died in 1919 also from illness sounding Influenza. Two of his younger brothers served in the war; Ronald Stuart Mackay who enlisted in early 1915 and returned to Australia in April 1919, and Archie Graham Mackay who enlisted in September 1915 and was killed in action on the 9 May 1915.