Janet Charlotte Mitchell

Mitcehll was born in Melbourne and was the fourth daughter of Edward Fancourt Mitchell and his wife Eliza née Fraser; her older sister is Isabel Mary Mitchell. She attended school at Scotch College, where their maternal grandfather Alexander Morrison was the headmaster, and also at home under the supervision of a governess. As a young woman Mitchell was also able to take extended European tours, some of which coincided with her father's travel there to try cases.

In 1917 Mitchell became a licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music, a conservatory in London, and, in 1922 graduated from the University of London with a bachelor of arts.

After completing her studies Mitchell returned to Australia where she was involved in various charitable works including as the education secretary of the Young Women's Christian Association in Melbourne (1924–1926){{cite news |date=11 February 1924 |title=Y.W.C.A. Activities |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243754706 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Herald (Melbourne) |location=Victoria, Australia |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=14,583}}{{cite news |date=4 March 1924 |title=Girls as workers |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244218906 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Herald |location=Victoria, Australia |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=14,602}} and directing the thrift services of the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales (1926–1931) where she was the first woman to hold an executive position within a big Australian bank.{{Cite web |title=Mitchell, Janet Charlotte |url=https://www.womenaustralia.info/entries/mitchell-janet-charlotte/ |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=AWR |language=en-AU}}{{cite news |date=15 August 1931 |title=Janet Mitchell |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article181286721 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Telegraph (Brisbane) |location=Queensland, Australia |page=8 (SPORTS FINAL) |via=National Library of Australia |issue=18,312}}{{cite news |date=14 August 1931 |title=Miss Janet Mitchell |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article102280342 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Albury Banner and Wodonga Express |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=22 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Mitchell was also active in the League of Nations Union between 1925 and 1931 and acted as a delegate to international conferences including one in Honolulu at the Institute of Pacific Relations in 1925 where she learnt about a new radium cure for leprosy which she then reported back to Australian newspapers about.{{cite news |date=5 September 1925 |title=Leprosy cure: Miss Janet Mitchell comments |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155798873 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Age |location=Victoria, Australia |page=20 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=21,973}}{{cite news |date=28 August 1925 |title=Recent conference in Honolulu |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243622555 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Herald (Melbourne) |location=Victoria, Australia |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=15,062}} Another conference she attended was in the 1931 conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Hangzhou, and while there she travelled on further to Harbin to report on the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, which she witnessed over a year long period in 1932, at some personal risk.{{cite news |date=9 November 1932 |title=Thrills in China |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230567178 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Sun (Sydney) |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=22 (LAST RACE EDITION) |via=National Library of Australia |issue=7133}}{{cite news |date=13 November 1932 |title=Comedy and tragedy in China |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230567732 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Sun (Sydney) |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=26 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=1546}}{{cite news |date=20 November 1932 |title=The Odds Against Living in Manchuria |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230574445 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Sun (Sydney) |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=24 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=1547}}{{cite news |date=15 January 1933 |title=Gaiety In Poverty |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article228908636 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Sun (Sydney) |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=28 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=1555}} This visit would form the basis of her only novel Tempest in Paradise (1935) which she dedicated to her cousin George Ernest Morrison.{{cite news |date=9 January 1935 |title=Miss Janet Mitchell writes a novel |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245435598 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Herald |location=Victoria, Australia |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=17,988}}

In 1933 Mitchell became the acting principal of the The Women's College at the University of Sydney until 1936 when she became the warden at Ashburne College within the University of Manchester before resigning in 1940 citing health reasons; during this period she also worked as a journalist and published her autobiography Spoils of Opportunity (1938).{{cite news |date=31 December 1938 |title=Autobiography of an Australian |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27975387 |accessdate=7 May 2025 |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |location=New South Wales, Australia |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=31,513}} She then returned to Australia again and converted to Catholicism and began working for the Australian Broadcasting Commission as an assistant in youth education between 1941 and 1955.{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=Janet Mitchell {{!}} AustLit: Discover Australian Stories |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A44581 |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}}

She died on 6 September 1957.

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Category:1896 births

Category:1957 deaths

Category:20th-century Australian journalists

Category:20th-century Australian writers