The Kidd Family A Family History
The Mitchell Family · John & Mary Mitchell

Engineer and Blacksmith

Robert Allan Mitchell

1823–1879

The son who stayed behind — married in Scotland, brought out by his father in 1857, and for twenty years the smith at the Parramatta Street forge.

Born
28 July 1823, Glasgow
Died
3 June 1879, Sydney
Married
Mary (c.1828–1874), of Edinburgh
Trade
Blacksmith and engineer
Lived
55 years

Robert Mitchell was born on 28 July 1823 and baptised in the Barony parish on 17 August, the elder son of John Mitchell and Mary Kellar, and named for his grandfather.1 He did not sail with the family in 1849. By then he had married a young woman from Edinburgh, Mary, whose parents James and Mary were both dead.

They came out in 1857, landing from the Washington Irving on 29 September. Robert, thirty-four, was entered as a blacksmith of Glasgow, his parents ‘John & Mary, at Sydney’, and his relation in the colony ‘Father, John Mitchell, Blacksmith, Cooks River’ — who had paid towards their passages under the Remittance Regulations.2

Robert kept a forge on Parramatta Street, Chippendale — No. 50 in 1866, when his father died in his house, No. 56 by 1874 — calling himself ‘engineer and blacksmith’.3 It was Robert who, in 1869, applied through a London solicitor for administration of his father’s English estate.4 His wife Mary died at 56 Parramatta Street on 27 May 1874, aged forty-six, of congestion of the lungs. Robert died there, by then George Street West, on 3 June 1879, aged fifty-five, ‘after a short and painful illness’; the Cambrian Lodge of Australia, No. 656, called its members to the funeral of their late Brother. They are buried side by side at Balmain Cemetery, now Pioneers Memorial Park, Leichhardt.5

The Record

Sources & References

  1. 1

    Baptism, 1823

    Barony parish, Lanark: Robert Mitchell, born 28 July 1823, baptised 17 August 1823, father John Mitchell, mother Mary McKellar (index).

  2. 2

    Arrival, 1857

    List of Immigrants per Washington Irving, as inspected by the Immigration Board: Robert Mitchell, 34, blacksmith, Glasgow, Lanark, parents John & Mary at Sydney, C. S., reads and writes; relations in the colony, Father, John Mitchell, Blacksmith, Cooks River; remarks, ‘R. R. per John Mitchell’. Mary, 28, wife, Edinburgh, parents James & Mary, dead. Arrival index: 29 September 1857.

  3. 3

    The forge

    Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 1866, p. 8: funeral of John Mitchell, blacksmith, from his son Robert’s residence, 50 Parramatta Street; companion notice from Mr Robert Mitchell, blacksmith.

  4. 4

    Administration, 1869

    England & Wales, Calendar of Administrations, 1869, p. 116: John Mitchell, late of Canterbury, NSW, blacksmith, widower, died 10 June 1866; administration 12 May 1869 to Arthur Lane, solicitor, attorney of Robert Mitchell the son.

  5. 5

    Deaths and burial

    Balmain Cemetery Revisited, p. 1216: no. 2483, Mary Mitchell, 46, died 56 Parramatta Street, 28 May 1874 [burial], parents James & Mary, death reg. 707/1874 — SMH 28 May 1874, ‘Mary, the beloved wife of R. Mitchell, of congestion of the lungs’; no. 4872, Robert Mitchell, 55, engineer, died George Street West, 4 June 1879 [burial], parents John & Mary, death reg. 1071/1879, buried near no. 2483 — SMH 4 June 1879, ‘June 3, at his residence, 56, George St. West (late Parramatta St), Mr. Robert Mitchell, engineer & blacksmith, after a short and painful illness, aged 55’, with a Cambrian Lodge No. 656 notice.