William Mitchell (missionary)

Mitchell was the first rector of the Swan Parish, an area which extended north to Gingin and Chittering and east to Toodyay and York.

He and his three brothers were orphaned as young children after his father, William Mitchell, was reputedly killed in Dublin riots (his mother's cause and date of death is uncertain).

The boys grew up in "Stackallen House" in County Meath, Republic of Ireland, the home of an uncle and under the care of a nurse.

While living there he was apprenticed to an apothecary for about one year and studied at Trinity College, Dublin before deciding to become a missionary.

Mitchell met a school teacher, Frances Tree Tatlock, and they married on 24 January 1832 before sailing for India to continue the missionary work in Bombay.

This organisation provided Anglican 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.

"[citation needed] Shortly after, Giustiniani was appointed, arriving at the Swan Parish in July 1836.

Mitchell was appointed to the replacement position and he and his family and a governess named Anne Breeze left Portsmouth on board Shepherd on 1 April 1838, arriving at Fremantle on 4 August 1838.

The eldest child – Annie, then 12 years old – described her first impressions in her memoirs: The ship "Shepherd" anchored off Garden Island on 4 August 1838, after a voyage of four months and three days.

At the time of arrival, there were only two vessels, the "Shepherd" and the "Britomart" plying between London and Western Australia.

It ran for about 16 kilometres (10 mi) from the river to the Darling Range but was only 10 chains (201.17 metres or 660.0 feet) wide.

On 5 August 1839 the foundation stone for St Mary's Church in Middle Swan was laid, and opened fifteen months later by Governor John Hutt on 29 November 1840.

Prior to the arrival of Mitchell, church services in Upper Swan were conducted at Henley Park by lay-preachers, either by Major Frederick Irwin who was the joint owner of that property with Judge William Mackie, or by George Fletcher Moore who had a land grant on the opposite (eastern) side of the river.

Part of the Henley Park estate included the site at which James Stirling had camped in his 1827 exploratory journey up the river.

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.