Joseph Mitchell (engineer)
Ross write the following description of Mitchell's early life: Land routes from north, south, east and west converged on Inverness, and its harbour provided for coastal and foreign trade.
Its sense of isolation had been somewhat lessened by the work of the Commissioners for Highland Roads and Bridges during the earlier decades of the nineteenth century.
As a result of this activity, the people of Inverness and its environs were well used to the presence of engineers, and a new career was opened to young men who previously might have passed their lives as labourers, or joined the army, or emigrated.
One such was John Mitchell, born in Forres, and trained as a stonemason, whose diligence attracted the favourable notice of Thomas Telford, supremo of all the works.
It became clear that engineering would be his profession and, at the age of seventeen, he was employed as a trainee mason at the canal works then under way at Fort Augustus, on the south end of Loch Ness.
As the son of John Mitchell, he was already on a fast career track, and from here he was taken to London by Telford, who liked the idea of a couple of 'raw Scotchmen' to act as his clerks and learn engineering at his house-cum-office.
Over the next twenty years, Joseph Mitchell acquired an unparalleled knowledge of the Highlands and Islands, as an engineer planning, contracting, supervising and consulting on virtually every work of significance from new paving in the streets of Inverness, and the setting-up of the town's gasworks, to laying out roads and building piers in the Orkneys.
By 1844 he was a prominent and highly respected member of the Inverness community, a director and co-founder of the Caledonian Bank, and involved in many aspects of life in the town and the countryside beyond.
Mitchell carried out a survey, and had a contractor ready, but he recorded that, 'although Mr Grant held meetings, and made considerable efforts at the time, the public did not seem then to appreciate the advantages of the proposed scheme.
