Capt. Hugh Mitchell (3 December 1849 – 16 August 1937) was a Scottish member of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

who later became a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

. In his youth he was a keen

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played for the

in the

1872 FA Cup Final The 1872 FA Cup Final was a football match between Wanderers and Royal Engineers on 16 March 1872 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the final of the first staging of the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA C ...

and appeared for Scotland in two of the representative matches played against England in 1871 and 1872.

Family and education

Mitchell was born in Marylebone, London, the son of Lieut. Col. Hugh Mitchell of the

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

army and his wife Jessie née McCaskill. He was educated at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

between 1864 and 1867 before going to the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

. At Harrow, he was a keen sportsman, representing the school at

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

and shooting. In 1878, he married Mary Catherine "Katie" Creswell, the sister of Col. Edmund Creswell who had played alongside him in the 1872 FA Cup Final. They had seven children, including

Philip Euen Mitchell Sir Philip Euen Mitchell, (1 May 1890 – 11 October 1964) was a British Colonial administrator who served as Governor of Uganda (1935–1940), Governor of Fiji (1942–1944) and Governor of Kenya (1944–1952). Birth and education Philip Euen ...

(1890–1964), who served as Governor of Uganda,

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

and Kenya. Katie died in 1892 following the birth of her youngest child. Mitchell had always been "rather dour" and his wife's death was "an incurable loss and grief" to him; as a result, he became more withdrawn and was seen by his grandchildren as a "patriarchal and terrifying figure".

Football career

Mitchell played as a forward who was described as "a good charger and useful forward hosticks to the ball well". He was part of the

team who reached the final of the inaugural FA Cup tournament, scoring a goal in the semi-final replay over Crystal Palace. In the final, played at Kennington Oval on 16 March 1872, the Engineers were defeated by the Wanderers by a single goal, scored by Morton Betts. In November 1871, he was selected to play for Scotland in the fourth of a series of matches between teams representing Scotland and England; he qualified for the Scottish team by virtue of his father's Scottish origins. The match ended in a 2–1 defeat, with the Scots' goal being scored by Mitchell's Royal Engineers team-mate, Lieut. Henry Renny-Tailyour. He retained his place in the Scottish team for the final match in the series, played the following February, which ended in a 1–0 victory for the English.

Military career

Mitchell joined the

as a Lieutenant on 8 January 1870. He was posted to Bermuda from 1873 to 1875 and then to Gibraltar before returning to England in 1878 where he worked in the War Office. Although he was promoted to the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

on 8 January 1882, he retired from the army two months later to qualify as a lawyer.

Legal career

He became a student of the Inner Temple on 21 January 1881 (then aged 31) and was called to the bar on 7 May 1884. He moved to South Wales where he operated on the South Wales and Chester Circuit and the Glamorgan Sessions. He practiced in Gibraltar and Tangier from 1896. He retired in 1926 and moved to South Africa where he died at Brakpan on 16 August 1937.

References

External links

*
Scotland international career summary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, Hugh 1849 births 1937 deaths Association footballers not categorized by position People educated at Harrow School England v Scotland representative footballers (1870–1872) FA Cup Final players Footballers from Westminster Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Royal Engineers A.F.C. players Royal Engineers officers Scottish footballers