After attending Truro Grammar School, Michell was employed in the office of his father's smelting works at Calenick, and afterwards in London.
[1] He wrote poems from an early age; was encouraged by Thomas Campbell and other literary men, and contributed to the Forget-me-not, the Keepsake, and other annuals.
This work supplies poetical descriptions of nearly all the existing remains of ancient people and kingdoms in the old and new world.
His next work, produced in 1853, was the Spirits of the Past, a title altered in a subsequent edition to Famous Women and Heroes.
Sibyl of Cornwall, a story in verse, deals with love and adventure, the scene being laid on the north coast of his native county.