Aldhelm St John Sugg was born on 21 October 1909. He was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School, 1922-1927, and was employed by Messrs Sharp, Perrin & Co., Wholesale Merchants, City of London, 1927-1929, and by the Palestine Police, 1930-1931. He moved to Northern Rhodesia in 1932, where he served on the police force until 1943. That year he joined Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service, serving as District Officer, 1943-1947, and District Commissioner, 1947-1958. As Commissioner, he was responsible for various rural districts, initiating large-scale agricultural development and resettlement schemes, including the resettlement necessitated by the building of the Kariba Dam. In 1958 he became Provincial Commissioner for Southern Province, a predominantly agrarian region that included the municipality of Livingstone. During 1958-1963, Sugg held a number of other positions: he was Chairman of the Victoria Falls Trust, a Government Statutory Board responsible for the preservation of the natural beauty of the Falls and its development as a tourist attraction; a Commissioner for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments; and the Chairman of the Victoria Falls Hydro Electric Board, a body responsible for the generation of electricity for the Livingstone/Victoria Falls area. He retired from the Service in 1963, and settled in England.

In 1935 Sugg married Jessie May Parker. Jessie was born in London in 1906. She received teacher training at Homerton, Cambridge, and was employed as a government teacher at Fort Jameson, Northern Rhodesia, from 1929. Following her marriage, she devoted herself to managing the family household and raising her two children, Michael St John and Elizabeth Jane. She died in 1994.