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1897 - 1990

William (Mark) Mitchell was born in 1897 in Northern Ireland and educated at Campbell College, Belfast, the University of London and St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London.

Mark Mitchell served in France with the Royal Irish Rifles during the First World War. He was injured and awarded the Military Cross. He returned to St. Bartholomew's for post-graduate training and became chief assistant to a surgical unit there.

In 1926 Mitchell immigrated to Canada arriving overland to Victoria where he became the chief of the department of surgery at Royal Jubilee Hospital and at the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital. From 1926 to 1939, he left his practice every few years to visit surgical clinics elsewhere, including Australia, the United States and Europe, to learn new techniques. During the Second World War, Mitchell served as lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was officer-in-charge of the surgical division in military hospitals in England, Malta and Egypt, where he served two years in each. After the war, he returned to Victoria and resumed his practice. In 1956 he was the Listerian Memorial Orator for the Victoria Medical Society and in 1965 he was elected an Honorary Member of the Society because of his distinguished service to the Society and the community at large. Mitchell was a member of the Society for sixty-five years.

Mark Mitchell joined the Vancouver Island section of the Alpine Club of Canada at the end of WWII and in 1946 attended the ACC Bugaboo Creek Camp with his daughter Patricia, who graduated to active membership on Anniversary Peak. It was at this camp that he first met Rex Gibson who was to become a close climbing friend. In 1948 he attended the Peyto Lake Camp with Bill Lash and his son Mallory and daughter Sylvia, Connie Bonner, Geoffrey Capes and Rex and Ethne Gibson; the Maligne Lake Camp in 1950; the Little Yoho Ski Camp in 1951 where he suffered a broken left femur; the Mount Assiniboine Camp in 1952 with Ted Goodall, Bill, Mallory and Dorohty Lash, Rex and Ethne Gibson and Geoffrey Capes; the Skoki Ski Camp in 1954 with Ted Goodall and Noel Lax; and the Mount Robson Camp and Glacier Ski Camp in 1955. In 1953 Mitchell co-led a section trip to Big Interior Mountain with Gibson, where a young Syd Watts was beginning his mountaineering career. During the war years (1942 to 1945) the Vancouver Island Section closed its doors, however, when it began again Mitchell took on the job of Chairperson from 1946 to 1953. One of Mitchell's last climbs was of Mount Rainer in 1961 with fellow doctor Michael Penn of Victoria.

Mark Mitchell passed away on December 26, 1990, in Victoria. He was ninety-three years old. He was predeceased by his first wife Catherine in 1953, and survived by his daughter Patricia and her family, and his second wife Margery. Doctor Peter Banks of Saanich said: "He was the first one to bring neurosurgical techniques to Victoria. Dr. Mitchell was a leader… [and his] standards, ethically and professionally, were the very highest." In 1969 Mitchell wrote a book entitled: Health, Wealth and Happiness. It was a philosophy of life and a guide to living.

Sources:
"Local Alpine Club Members Scale Strathcona Park Peak." Daily Colonist. [Victoria, B.C.] (September 11, 1953) p. 6.

"MD brought neurosurgery to Victoria." Times Colonist. [Victoria, B.C.] (January 3, 1991) p. C1.

Victoria Medical Society archives. Letter to Dr. Mitchell from Dr. Paul Gareau, M.D.. November 5, 1965.

Victoria Medical Society archives. Letter to Dr. Mitchell from Michael A. Ross, FRCS, V.M.S. President. February 18, 1988.

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