Reverend William Mitchell (born 20 November 1803 in the County of Monaghan, Ireland - died August 3 1870 in Perth, Western Australia, buried at Middle Swan) was a Church of England minister who was the first ordained person to provide religious services in the Swan Valley area of the Swan River Colony. He worked in the parish for over 20 years before moving to Perth to take up a position working with convicts and prisoners in the Perth Prison in Beaufort Street.
Mitchell was the first rector of the Swan Parish, an area which extended north to Gingin and Chittering and east to Toodyay and York. The southern boundary included Guildford and Midland.
Early life and India
After his parents were killed in Dublin riots, Mitchell and his three brothers grew up in Stackallen, a castle in County Meath, Republic of Ireland. Little else is known of his early life until he married Anne Holmes in January 1826. At about the same time, Mitchell entered Trinity College, Dublin in preparation for a ministry position, sponsored by the Church Missionary Society. He was ordained and left Ireland with his wife for a missionary position in India where two daughters and a son were born in 1826, 1828 and 1829.
Due to the failing health of his Anne, the family returned to England. However, she died in 1831.
Mitchell met a school teacher, Francis Tree Tattlock and they married in January 1832 before sailing for India to continue the missionary work in Bombay. Frances gave birth to a son (Blaney) in 1832 but he died nine months later. A second son (Samuel) was born in November 1832. Frances and the children returned to England on board the Severn in February 1834, leaving William to continue his missionary work until he returned to England in April 1835 due to his own failing health. After recuperating for some time on the Isle of Wight, Mitchell had a disagreement with his Church Missionary Society employers and started to seek alternative missionary work.
Recruitment
Frederick Irwin travelled to England in 1834 to seek clergymen for the Swan River Colony and as a result, a society within the Church of England was formed called the Western Australian Missionary Society, later to merge with other similar societies and to become the Colonial and Continental Church Society. This organisation provided missionaries for many of England's colonies in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
In 1836, a meeting was held in Guildford of residents of the Middle and Upper Swan regions of the new colony ... for the purpose of obtaining a clergyman for those populous districts, which owing to their remoteness from the Colonial Chaplains' residence, were destitute of spiritual leadership and devoid of public worship.
Shortly after, Rev. Louis Giustiniani was appointed, arriving at the Swan Parish in July, 1836. He started a church at Woodbridge in Guildford and established the Middle Swan native mission (at the site of what was to become St. Mary's Church, Middle Swan), aimed at evangelising the local indigenous population. His tenure was unpopular however and he left the colony in 1838.
Mitchell was appointed to the replacement position and he and his family and a governess named Anne Breeze left Portsmouth onboard the Shepherd in April 1 1938, arriving at Fremantle on August 4 1838.
Arrival in the colony
The eldest child - Annie, then 12 years old described her first impressions in her memoirs:
The ship "Shepherd" anchored off Garden Island on August 4th 1838, after a voyage of four months and three days. We landed at Fremantle by the ships boats. The first sight we witnessed was a very large whale lying on the sea beach at Fremantle, from which the natives were cutting large pieces and carrying them away on spears.
We lodged at Fremantle for a week and then proceeded to Government House where we were entertained by Sir James Stirling and Lady Stirling. It was usual practice at this time for new arrivals to call at Government House on arrival. We stayed at Judge Mackies house for a while (he was the first Judge in the Colony). After this we went to Henley Park, on the Upper Swan, by boat. Major Irwin was landlord at this time. He was Commandant of the troops in W.A. We stayed with him for a week or so then went to the Mission-house on the Middle Swan where we settled.
The whole of Perth at this time was all deep sand and scrub. There was no road or railway to perth. All transport was done by water travel. The banks of the Swan River were a nass of green fields and flowers, with everlastings as far as the eye could see.
At the time of arrival, there were only two vessels, the "Shepherd" and the "Britomart" plying between London and West Australia. When the ship arrived, a cannon was fired to let people know that a vessel had arrived. The people used to ride or row down to Fremantle to get their letters. There were then about seven or eight hundred people settled in W.A. mostly along the banks of the Swan.
There was no church in the Colony at this time and the services were conducted in the Courthouse by the Rev. Wittenoom, the first Colonial Chaplain.
The natives were held in dread, as they occasionally attacked the settlers. We were surrounded by natives for several months, and Captain Grey (afterwards Governor of New Zealand) used to supply us with rice and sugar to give to the natives to settle quietly and enable my father to learn their lingo. This went quietly until one night one of the Aborigines speared another while he was sleeping. With that the natives cleared out and would not return for a considerable time on account of their fellows spirit worrying them. The whites generally travelled together as they were afraid of the natives giving them a prod with a spear.
The Governor and Colonial Secretary used to ride up the Swan and visit all of the houses. The people were very hospitable at this time and used to take sheets off the bed to use as a tablecloth. No boots or shoes were to be obtained and the Governors' children used to go about barefoot like the rest of them.
We used to often be for weeks together without any flour to make bread and had to live on rice and salt pork. We used to pay seven and six for a leg of mutton. The only fruit available was had when a vessel used to come from the Cape of Good Hope occasionally with Cape fruit.
Parish life
The Mission house in Middle Swan which had been built for Rev. Giustaniani was built on a narrow strip of land which was known as the Mission Grant. This ran for about 10 miles (16 km) from the river to the Darling Range but was only 10 chains (220 yards/200 m) wide and was purchased for £150. The house was made of mud bricks with a thatched roof and is believed to have stood where Huddelston House now stands at Swanleigh, a short distance from St. Mary's.
A school was promptly started in the house, with Anne Breeze assisting.
A church for which construction had been initiated by Rev. Giustiani in East Guildford was completed in 1839.
On August 5 1839 the foundation stone for St. Mary's Church in Middle Swan was laid, and opened fifteen months later by Governor John Hutt on November 29 1840. The church was completed in November 1840 and built with an octagonal layout and could hold about 100 people. It was not consecrated until 1848 but remained in use until 1869 when it was replaced by a new rectangular church immediately adjacent.
Prior to the arrival of the Rev. Mitchell, Upper Swan were conducted at Henley Park by lay-preachers, either by Major Irwin who was the joint owner of the property with Judge Mackie, or by George Fletcher Moore who had a land grant on the opposite (eastern) side of the river. Moore would swim across the river to conduct the service. Part of the Henley Park estate included the site at which James Stirling had camped in his 1827 exploratory journey up the river.
Accordingly, an area of land within Henley Park was donated by the owners for the construction of a church which was named All Saint's. The foundation stone was laid on October 31 1839 with the church consecrated on November 21 1848.
Within three years of his arrival, Mitchell had overseen the opening of three permanent church buildings in his parish where Perth and Fremantle were yet to have one.
In December 1840, Mitchell officiated at the marriage of Anne Breeze and Henry Camfield, the Post Master General at St Mary's.
In 1842, he was reclassified by the Governor from a Missionary to a Chaplain and first Rector of the Swan Parish.
Three additional children were born in the Mission House in 1841, 1843 and 1846, which meant a family of seven children spanning 20 years.
In 1858, after 20 years in the Swan Parish, Mitchell was transferred to Perth where he and his family lived at the Deanery. His position was Chaplain of the Convict Prison as well as chaplaincy duties at various hospitals in Perth.
After returning from a brief visit to visit his son Samuel in Albany in 1870 his youngest son, Andrew died suddenly on 31 May. Mitchell became ill and passed away at the age of 73 on August 3 1870. His wife Frances died in Perth on July 1 1879. They are both buried, along with Andrew at St. Mary's graveyard.
Family
A full list of his children and their spouses is as follows:
- First wife: Anne Holmes (1803-1870). Married 1826
- Annie (1826-1917)
- Married: Edward Lane Courthope
- Susan Augusta (1828-1867)
- Married: Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy
- William Owen (1829-1914)
- Married: Isa Izon Bickley
- Annie (1826-1917)
- Second wife: Frances Tree Tatlock (1806-1879). Married 1832
- Blaney (1832-1833)
- Samuel (1834-1908)
- Married: Mary Ann Bispham
- Francis Tree (1841-1894)
- Married Archdeacon James Brown
- Charlotte (1843-1922)
- Married (1): Frederick Parker
- Married (2): John Adam
- Andrew Forster (1846-1870) (unmarried)
References
- Wilson, Harold S. (1997). A History of the Swan Parish. Access Press, Bassendean ISBN 0864451342.
- Greenslade, Frank Nelder (1979). Mitchell Amen. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands ISBN 0959535918.