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William Fraser Mitchell was born on 9 April 1900 in Monifieth, Angus the only son of William Fraser Mitchell and Jane Lawson. He was a descendant of William Watson, linen weaver, St Vigeans, who was also the great grandfather of Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt (1892- ), inventor of the radar. William Fraser first compiled his family history in 1940. He was educated at Dundee High School, leaving in 1918. In January 1919 he matriculated at Edinburgh University, studying English. He graduated with First Class Honours in 1922 and then went on to Exeter College, Oxford, researching English rhetorical preaching in the seventeenth century. He was awarded the degree of B.Litt., and was later successful in publishing his work English pulpit oratory from Andrewes to Tillotson: a study of its literary aspects (1932).
After Oxford, Mitchell studied Education at Moray House and Edinburgh University, and became personal assistant to Professor Sir Godfrey Thomson (1925-1951). After a temporary post as Lecturer in English at Armstrong College, Newcastle, he was appointed Lecturer in Education at the University of Reading in 1928 where he remained until 1944. A secondment to Farnborough Grammar School as an English master was followed by his appointment as Professor of Education in the Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, where he instructed teachers of religious knowledge, missionary teachers, overseas student teachers, Froebel students, and youth leaders. With the closure of the Department of Education at Selly Oak in 1951, Mitchell took a post as Assistant Lecturer in English at Huddersfield Technical College, but in 1955 he returned to the Midlands to take part in the establishment of the Malayan Teachers' College in Wolverhampton. There, three hundred students flown over from Malaya were trained for secondary school teaching. He then returned to Huddersfield Technical College for a time, was a Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, 1957-1958, and until his retirement in 1965 was an Assistant English Master at Colne Valley High School.
In addition to his study of comparative education, religious education and comparative religion, Mitchell was interested in the life of James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799). When he retired to Dundee, he took up his research again and involved himself in church work. He published collections of poetry including Off parade and other verses (1919), Cobweb and mustard seed (1928), and A slim volume (1960). William Fraser Mitchell died in July 1988.
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