David Mitchell (16 February 1829 – 25 March 1916) was a Scottish-

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n builder. He was born in

Forfarshire Angus ( sco, Angus; gd, Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agri ...

, Scotland.

Biography

Born in Forfarshire, Scotland, in 1829, David Mitchell emigrated to Australia in 1852. Mitchell is noted for building

Scots' Church, Melbourne The Scots' Church is a Presbyterian church in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was the first Presbyterian church to be built in the Port Phillip District (now the state of Victoria) and is located on Collins Street. It is a congregation of the ...

, St Patrick's Cathedral, Eastern Hill, Menzies Hotel in

William Street, Melbourne William Street is a major street in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It runs roughly north–south from Flinders Street to Victoria Street, and was laid out in 1837 as part of the original Hoddle Grid. The stre ...

(1857) and Presbyterian Ladies' College, East Melbourne (1874). His grandest accomplishment was the

Royal Exhibition Building The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage-listed building in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, built in 1879–1880 as part of the international exhibition movement, which presented over 50 exhibitions between 1851 and 1915 around the glo ...

, later to become Australia's first building to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status. In 1878 he bought land outside Lilydale on which he opened and operated the Cave Hill limestone and marble quarry. The business worked in tandem with his building company and was a great success, operating as the David Mitchell Estate Ltd after his death until it was sold to a Belgian conglomerate in 2002. It finally ceased operations in 2015. David Mitchell died on 25 March 1916 and is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery. His eldest daughter, born Helen Porter Mitchell, was the renowned

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

tic

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

Dame Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano (three octaves). She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century ...

; artist

Helen Lempriere Helen Dora Lempriere (12 December 1907 – 5 November 1991) was an Australian painter, sculptor and printmaker. Biography Born in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern on 12 December 1907, she was the only child of Charles Algernon Lempriere (brother ...

was his niece.

References

*Joan Campbell,
Mitchell, David (1829–1916)
,

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

, Volume 5, MUP, 1974, pp 259–260. Australian builders 1829 births 1916 deaths Scottish emigrants to colonial Australia People from Angus, Scotland {{Australia-bio-stub